LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HBp William llBumet Wixi^u 



ANCIENT CITIES, FROM THE DAWN TO THE 

DAYLIGHT. i6mo, $1.25. 
THE WORLD TO COME. Sermons. i6mo, $1.25. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Boston and New York. 



THE WORLD TO COME 



BY 

WILLIAM BURNET WRIGHT 

AUTHOR OF "ANCIENT CITIES" 





BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1887 






1*. 



*>T> 



*v 



Copyright, 1887, 
By WILLIAM BURXET WRIGHT. 

All rights reserved. 



Tlie Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



PREFACE. 

9 

When the earthly grandeur of Israel had 
vanished and the vast majority of Israelites 
were exiles, an inspired teacher wrote the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. It cheered them 
with the hope that their wanderings would 
end in a city fairer than the old Jerusalem 
had ever been ; a city in which righteous- 
ness should rule, love prevail, peace and joy 
be the portion of every citizen. Other parts 
of the New Testament offer to all men the 
same radiant hope, and assure us that though 
the desired place is always at hand, it can 
be entered only by those who are "born 
from above," and is discerned by those alone 
whose eyes Christ has opened to see things 
which, though they have been present from 
the foundation of the world, have been hid- 
den from men's eyes, because men " having 



iv PREFACE. 

eyes see not the things belonging to their 
peace." 

That city, the author of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews named in the phrase selected 
for the title of this book, " The World to 
Come." 

For its coming all men hope. For its 
coming all good men toil. Into it Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer and Mr. Henry George are 
endeavoring earnestly and honestly to lead 
us by different but, I think, by equally mis- 
taken roads. It will never be reached ex- 
cept by the steep and narrow way to which 
the Master pointed. 

The vague but universal expectation of 
the world which is to come is expressed in 
the text of the opening paper. The rate of 
our approach toward what all desire is in 
some degree measured by the history of 
Christmas with which the volume closes. 

That we can all wish each other " A 
Happy New Year" implies the general hope 
of a future in which there shall be no more 
sighing. 



PREFACE. V 

The history of Christmas may serve to 
show that so much of progress toward that 
future as can be measured by the gradual 
transformation of the Roman Saturnalia into 
the German festival has consumed about 
fifteen hundred years. 

Most of us already spend one three-hun- 
dred-and-sixty-fif th part of our time in an at- 
mosphere distinctively Christian ; in a world 
where the true business of life is practically 
conceded to be — what our Saviour affirms 
that it is — not getting for ourselves, but 
giving to others. Already during one day 
of each year the Holy Spirit is poured out 
upon all flesh, as if God compelled us to bo 
Christians for a little while, in order that 
we might know by actual experience how 
good aftd pleasant it is to enter into the joy 
of our Lord, and continue Christians by our 
own choice the remainder of the time. 

How soon the lesson will be learned effec- 
tually and all our time redeemed by Him 
who declares that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive, the reader can calculate as 



Vi PREFACE. 

easily as I. We know that God is long-suf- 
fering and marvellously patient. 

What external changes the future may 
bring to increase human felicity I do not 
know. Whatever they may be, I cannot 
think them essential to our happiness while I 
hear one who is the Truth asking for those He 
loves — even while He accepts the cup which 
He pleads with a great agony to have pass 
from Him. and faces the trials which marked 
Him as the Man of Sorrows — " that they 
may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.*' 
But it seems to me supremely important for 
every man to understand that he can reach 
heaven only by walking the steep and nar- 
row way. and that the essential conditions 
of all joy are deliverance from those sins 
and possession of those virtues, of which 
such as I have oftenest needed to remind 
myself and my brethren are in this book 
brought to view. 

In the selection of sermons T have care- 
fully avoided all which treat of questions in 
debate, and have chosen those which depend 



PREFACE. yn 

for such force as they have upon principles 
acknowledged by the universal Christian 
conscience as true. In other words, the fol- 
lowing pages deal not with the ephemeral 
phases of human speculation, but with the 
permanent elements of human nature. 

The tinge of local coloring in the Memo- 
rial of Franklin Snow comes from the fact 
that it — as were all the utterances in this 
book — was spoken in Berkeley Street 
Church, Boston, of which Mr. Snow was at 
the time of his death a deacon, and the 
speaker was the pastor. The closing paper 
is not a sermon, but a familiar talk given 
to the young people of the same Church at 
a certain Christmas festival which many 
of them will remember, and afterwards 
repeated to larger audiences in different 
parts of New England. I hope it may 
strengthen the reader's conviction that the 
stones for the strong foundations of the 
New Jerusalem and for the walls which 
" are both great and high " must be quar- 
ried from the Mountain of the Beatitudes ; 



Vlll PREFACE: 

for only he " who heareth these sayings of 
mine and doeth them " builds for himself 
a home which neither storm nor flood can 
sweep away. 



CONTENTS. 



I. A Happy New Year .... 1 

II. The Model Church .... 15 

III. Teach us to Pray . . . .32 

IV. The Keys of the Kingdom . . 45 
V. Spiritual Ploughing . . . .59 

VI. Jericho . 74 

VII. Gideon's Men 88 

VIII. Self-Pity : Saul in the Witch's Cave 100 

IX. Samson: Self-Deception . . .112 

X. To Parents 124 

XI. Saving Faith 139 

XII. Franklin Snow 149 

XIII. What Must I do to be Saved? . 177 

XIV. What has God done to Save Me ? . 194 
XV. The Missionary Spirit . . . 209 

XVI. Easter: Transfiguration . . . 222 

XVII. Flower Sunday 233 

XVIII. Decoration Day . . ■ . .241 

XIX. Harvest Sunday .... 253 

XX. Christmas 267 



THE WOELD TO COME. 



I. 

A HAPPY NEW YEAR. 
"I wish you a happy New Year." 

I must take a little time to give you the 
chapter and verse of the text, because I 
have heard it from so many lips, and seen it 
in so many faces, of which the Concordance 
issued in heaven has not yet been repub- 
lished upon earth. 

The last day of the old year was not al- 
together bright to me. Clouds were thick 
when it dawned. Within fourteen days I 
had ministered at fourteen funerals. Early 
in the afternoon I was called to visit a mo- 
ther, two of whose children had been buried 
the week before, and who was herself thought 
to be dying. A friend stopped me on the 
doorstep to ask if I could officiate at 
another funeral the next afternoon. I was 
beginning to feel that this is a bad world, 



2 THE WORLD TO COME. 

with too much trouble in it. For a minister, 
I know, and for you, I think, it is worse to 
doubt any of those words of the Master in 
which He said, "Blessed are they that 
mourn," than to doubt the things which men 
have put in the creeds about the Trinity, or 
the Atonement, or endless punishment. And 
how bad it is to question the latter, any of 
the theology books will tell you. A con- 
sciousness of the sorrowfulness of life was 
creeping like mildew over me, as I passed 
into a neighborhood where only poor people 
live. There the stores are dingy, and most 
of them are in cellars. Baskets of coal, 
painfully small, and puny bunches of fagots 
are for sale upon the sidewalk. The day 
was bitterly cold. On such days few sights 
are more pitiful than these tiny morsels of 
fuel, which the poor buy when they can af- 
ford them. As I crossed the broad street 
which divides your neighborhood from this 
section, I heard my name called. A bright 
face shone, a cheery voice exclaimed, " I wish 
you a happy New Year." We shook hands, 
and a star seemed to be struggling through 
the clouds. Not everybody was crying. 

I passed on. A mother — a member of 
our church ; two sick children ; yet the 



A HAPPY NEW YEAR. 3 

single room in which they all lived together 
seemed empty to her, because within a fort- 
night two other children had been carried 
from it, never to return. The poor love 
their children perhaps the more because they 
have so little else to love. The poor woman 
finds in her babe all of light and laughter 
that she has ; all that books, flowers, amuse- 
ment, society, travel, and children, give to 
you. This mother had come near following 
her loved little ones, the night before. She 
was very weak. But she had strength enough 
to say these three things : " I have slept a 
whole hour, and I feel so rested." " I never 
thought of it in that way before. He had 
not where to lay his head, and I have a good 
bed to lie upon." And, as I came away, " I 
wish you a happy New Year." The clouds 
were growing thin. 

Then Miss B wanted me to visit an 

aged Scotch woman, who had asked to see 
me because, seven years ago, when she was 
still in the old country, I buried her daugh- 
ter. She lives in a cellar. She is old, and 
her brogue was hard for me to understand. 
She had rheumatism, and a pleurisy pain in 
her side, and a few weeks ago she fell upon 
the stairs, and the jar was terrible. She 



4 THE WORLD TO COME. 

had never seen me before, but when my 
name was spoken, memories came. Hers 
was the familiar story, — " Son that never 
let her want for anything when he had it to 
give ; out of work now. The landlord was 
not pressing for the three weeks' rent, and 
Jamie was promised a long job come the 
New Year ; and she had had a splendid cup 
o' tea the morn, and there was eneuch for the 
morrow; and a gude woman cam at the 
gloamin', to cook the meal and tidy a bit. 
But times her head gaed woad, and she for- 
got the endin' o' the psaulms, tho' gen the 
prayers cam short and she could na mind 
the endin', perhaps the Lord mindid a' the 
same ! And wad I pray." " Yes ! But do 
not try to kneel, for it hurts you ! " " But 
it 's little eneuch to kneel before Him ! " So 
we helped her off the bed, and after prayers 
we helped her back upon it. And " God be 
wie ye, sir," she said, as she wished me " a 
happy New Year." 

The clouds were almost gone as I entered 
the room of a dear friend who has been con- 
fined some weeks to her chamber, and heard 
her say : " I will not remind you that you 
have not been in my house for a year, because 
I am so glad to see you and to w 7 ish you l a 
happy New Year.' " 



A HAPPY NEW TEAR. 5 

The sky was clear when at last I joined 
some of you in the rooms below, and saw 
sixty or seventy tots of children, dressed in 
their best, and saw you trying with all your 
skill to make them happy. It takes so little 
to make children happy ! Even the three 
with pinched faces who at first shrunk apart, 
and would not join in the games because 
their clothes were shabby, soon began to look 
eager and delighted. I never loved our 
superintendent and our deacons so well, as 
while I saw them racing with the gleeful 
babies, and so becoming little children after 
the manner of those who enter the kingdom 
of God. " Let 's sing now," they said. 
rt What shall we sing? " Sing " Christ was 
shined in Bethlehem ! " cried a tiny tot of 
rapturous humanity. 

You should have seen their eyes dilate, 
heard their shouts of ecstasy when a kind 
friend turned eggs into rabbits, and brought 
doves out of tin cans. Feeling richer than 
Croesus with his gold, each little one was led 
home at seven with his orange and his bag 
of peanuts. 

It takes so little to make children happy, 
and yet they are so often unhappy ! 

In the evening the older members of the 



6 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Sunday-school convened, and so sweet a cel- 
ebration, so joyous and so gracious a meeting 
I have rarely seen. All seemed to rejoice, as 
if they knew whose hand would lead them 
safely through the unexplored and tangled 
paths of the future, and therefore felt, 
" Nothing can hurt us, nothing can make us 
afraid, for He will be with us always, and 
none can pluck us out of his hand." 

It was half past nine when an esteemed 
friend took both my hands and said : " It is 
time, I think, to wish you a happy New Year." 
He little thought, perhaps none of you 
thought, how mightily you were working to 
make my New Year happy. 

Three children went home with me, and 
each of them declared they had never had 
so good a time before. The next morning, 
before my eyelids opened, a patter of little 
feet, a shout, a kiss, a chorus of " Happy New 
Year, papa ! " mingled with this radiant re- 
frain, "I love to go to church where they 
have real doves." 

The text is one of those utterances. 
Which one I cannot quite tell, and perhaps 
it does not matter, for all of them may be 
found in the Lamb's Book of Life. 

1. I remark ; though the words of the text 



A HAPPY NEW" YEAR. 7 

do not occur in the Bible, they are none the 
less inspired. Every one who has sincerely 
uttered them has spoken by inspiration of 
the Holy Spirit. It is God who makes you 
love your neighbor, and I shall do a worthy 
work to-day, if I can make you realize that 
the fervent love you feel for your friends and 
your families comes from Him whose name 
is Love. Could any other than God's Spirit 
inspire a young lady, elegantly dressed, to 
plunge through carts and cars across the 
muddy street, risking her comfort and her 
toilet, just from loving-kindness, to wish me 
a** happy New Year ? Was it not God's 
Spirit that, checking the envy so common to 
us all, moved a sick woman, old, suffering, 
in rags, in a cellar, with no money and few 
friends, her rent unpaid, rheumatism in her 
bones and chilblains in her feet, to look at 
me, sleek, well-dressed, well-fed, glowing with 
health, and sincerely wish me " a happy New 
Year" ? But for God, she would have been 
eying this gold watch-chain and saying, "It 
might be sold for much, and given to the 
poor ! " But for God, she would be think- 
ing, " Is he better than I, who read my Bible 
and say my prayers every day, and have not 
a cent with which to bless myself?" Was 



8 THE WORLD TO COME, 

it not the Spirit of God which said, " I will 
not remind you that you have not been to 
see me for a year, because I am so glad to see 
you and to wish you a happy New Year " ? 

And was it not God's Spirit that guided 
old and young in the rooms below, to enact 
the same greeting in such a way that I went 
home feeling so full of gladness that to sleep 
seemed to squander joy ? 

Friends, whoso loveth is born of God. 
He that loveth his brother, whom he hath 
seen, is growing in the love of God, whom he 
hath not seen. For this New Year's greet- 
ing is in fact the exact benediction which 
Heaven spoke upon Earth over the cradle of 
Christ. It is the prayer which Jesus uttered 
for his own when He asked that they might 
be one ; and the fulfilment of the radiant 
permission, " Enter into my joy." 

2. My hope dilates and my courage grows 
because so many have sincerely said, " I wish 
you a happy New Year." From millions of 
hearts this great psalm of the new life has 
ascended. Some have spoken insincerely. 
In some the lips have belied the heart. 
There are pharisees of fashion as there are 
pharisees of religion. But oftenest far the 
words have been genuine. How earnestly 



A HAPPY NEW TEAR. 9 

do parents desire a happy New Year for 
their children; friends for their friends. 
For how many of those that mourn, and of 
those who are poor, has the wish been hon- 
estly felt, " May they have a more cheerful 
future." How much true charity have these 
Christmas holidays beheld. 

If the recording angels are as careful of 
good words as of idle ones, — and who can 
question that they are — they have been 
busy this past week over the Lamb's Book. 
When the Lion of the tribe of Judah pre- 
vails to open it for us, we shall read many 
things we have not written in our note- 
books ; we shall miss much that we have 
printed in our largest type. 

" He hath built us a synagogue" 
may have been entered on high. But 
She hath cast in Two Mites 

all eyes shall see. 

Remember these kind greetings are 
prayers. God himself has inspired them, 
and they show that He is wishing us a happy 
New Year. 

3. God has in reserve for every one of us, 
this coming year, something better than we 
can ask or think. It is most appropriate 



10 THE WORLD TO COME. 

for us to begin the year at the communion 
table. For the happiness of our future de- 
pends upon our communion with Him at 
whose right hand are pleasures forever- 
more. They who walk with God shall be 
happy ; they who live nearest God shall be 
happiest. 

In all the realms of life you shall find no 
creatures joyful save such as obey the laws 
of their being. God so wishes all his crea- 
tures to be glad, that He has shown to each 
of them the things belonging to their peace. 
To the brutes by instinct, to us by reason 
and by revelation, He has revealed the con- 
ditions under which alone we can be glad. 
These conditions we call laws, and talk about 
them as if they were arbitrary requirements 
of our Father ; as if He were a king who 
makes decrees for his own pleasure, and 
punishes those who disobey them. But 
God's Statute Book declares, " There is no 
peace for the wicked." God himself could 
not find that which " is not." " Wisdom's 
ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her 
paths are peace." "I wish you a happy 
New Year for time, for eternity ! " This is 
the meaning of the law which warns, of the 
gospel which woos. To wish you all "a 



A HAPPY NEW YEAR. 11 

happy New Year " is to wish you all Chris- 
tians. 

Let the year that is past be our compass 
for the year that is passing. From some of 
you money has gone ; from some friends 
have been taken ; some have been sick ; 
some have been slandered ; some have failed 
in their undertakings ; some have worked 
till they are very weary; some have lost 
heart and hope and faith. As the past has 
been, the future will be, except for the 
changes within us. Do you need a stay 
that is not rooted in the ground ? A support 
that earthquakes cannot throw down ? The 
things we have most lamented, it may be, 
have been God's best gifts to us. Is there 
green grass in the desert? Do flowers 
blossom there? Are fruits ripened above 
its sands ? Yet there the sun always shines. 
There clouds never come. There the blue 
sky bends always over all. And no frost 
chills the air. But the only fruits of its 
perpetual radiance are the bleaching bones 
of camels and men, who have tried in vain 
to cross it. There can be no rain where 
clouds never come, for He, by whom in the 
beginning all things were made that were 
made, wrote in the silent ground what He 



12 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

read aloud to his suffering children when 
He stood upon the mount, "Blessed are 
they that mourn." 

4. My friends, if we begin this year seek- 
ing our own ends and not God's, we shall be 
as children who enter school not to learn and 
grow wise by their teacher's wisdom, but to 
idle or to play. For them there shall be 
pain and punishment and tears. No love 
sweetens their daily work, and at the end no 
dear assurance of rest and full contentment, 
— " Well done, good and faithful." 

Remember, whatever your plans may be, 
God has something for you to do. You may 
not yet see what it is. Then wait upon Him 
and He will show you. His will is not only 
that you may grow rich ; He may not mean 
you to succeed in the things you propose for 
yourself. He means you to become a truer, 
wiser, stronger man ; more just, more brave, 
more loving. That is surely his first pur- 
pose for you. Is it your first purpose for 
yourself ? If you do that, whatever else may 
come of loss or trouble, will you feel sure 
that you have not failed, though all the 
newspapers in the land and all the com- 
mercial registers write you down a bank- 
rupt? If not, you are not fit to do business 
in God's world. 



A HAPPY NEW YEAR. 13 

There are two natures in every one of us, 
fighting for the mastery : a higher and a 
lower. If we put the sceptre in the hands 
of impulse, and take counsel only of our 
wishes and our passions, we shall have tor- 
ment enough. A beast is a good thing to 
drive ; but alas for the man who is driven by 
a beast ! If we crown principle and take 
counsel of God we shall have his peace that 
passeth understanding. 

When spring comes I shall look upon the 
fields. Here and there, in early April, per- 
haps I shall find one green, and growing 
daily greener. No blade in it that breaks 
the ground shall be disturbed. No flower 
that peers shall be uprooted. That field 
shall keep all its growths, no sharp share 
shall wound its breast, and I shall know 
the farmer has given it over to lie barren. 
It will bear no harvest either of beauty or of 
fruit. " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let 
him alone." God will not hurt us when we 
are past being helped by pain. 

Other fields I shall see, cut with sharp 
shares, pounded and pierced by harrows; 
every blade that peers toward heaven up- 
rooted, every flower torn up, till the ground 
seems sterile as desert wastes. In such 



14 THE WORLD TO COME. 

fields I shall look for harvests. There, in 
due time, I shall find flowers, fruits, grain. 
When ye are stripped and scarred and 
scourged, listen to the Lord's voice ; He is 
saying, "All this is because I wish you a 
happy New Year ! " 

Does the future mean to us earth or 
heaven ? A few months and the new year 
shall be old. A few years, and all years 
shall be ended. In a moment, in the twin- 
kling of an eye, for each of us mortality 
shall be swallowed up of life. 

Let us realize that we are immortal. Let 
us remember that the themes we ponder here 
on this day are infinitely more momentous 
than those presented by the counting-room, 
the kitchen, or the parlor. Let us give 
them their lawful sovereignty. Let us live 
as becometh immortal sons of God, loving 
each other because God hath loved us. Do 
this and our prayers for each other shall 
be answered, — we shall have a happy New 
Year. 



II. 

THE MODEL CHURCH. 

And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders 
and signs were done by the Apostles. And all that 
believed were together and had all things common ; and 
they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them 
to all according as any man had need. And day by day, 
continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and 
breaking bread at home, they did take their food with 
gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and hav- 
ing favor with all the people. And the Lord added 
to them day by day those that were being saved. — 
AcTsii. 43-47. (R. V.) 

This is a description of the first Christian 
Church. Its officers had been chosen and 
trained by Jesus Christ. Its members, we 
are told, continued steadfast in the Apostles' 
teaching. Their fellowship was undisturbed 
by dissensions. They had favor with all the 
people — even " working men," that must 
include. Every day God added to them 
those who were being saved. 

This is the only Church minutely described 
in the New Testament. It would therefore 
appear to be held before us as the ideal 



16 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

which other churches should try to realize 
and reproduce. 

I. I would have you observe that it had 
an extremely simple creed, — personal loy- 
alty to the Lord Jesus Christ. That and 
that alone qualified a man for membership. 
It was bound together, not by a consensus 
of intellectual opinions as political parties 
are, but, as families are, by affectionate obe- 
dience to a person. 

II. The description of this Church forms 
the beginning of the Book of Acts. The 
biographies of the Apostles are not records 
of emotions, like the biographies of A Kem- 
pis and Tauler ; nor of speculative contro- 
versies, as the history of the Church became 
after she had, at Constantinople, laid aside 
the crown of thorns for the diadem of 
pearls : but a book of acts. 

It is said that one of the early hermits 
spent seventeen years standing in the atti- 
tude of prayer, until his knees had grown so 
stiff that he could not stoop to give drink to 
a sick man dying at his feet. The marvel 
is, not that such a story could gain credence, 
but that the hermit should pass for a saint 
among the disciples of Him who warned us 
not to make long prayers, and told us to 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 17 

•imitate the good Samaritan. A church 
may come out of the Lenten season or the 
week of prayer like the stiff-kneed hermit. 
Whether, during appointed seasons of devo- 
tion, we really pray, the deeds which follow 
those seasons will inexorably indicate. The 
narrative of the days in the Upper Chamber, 
and of the Pentecost which followed them, 
would have described the Waterloo of Chris- 
tianity, if it did not begin the Book of Acts. 
By this approach let us scrutinize the Model 
Church. 

1. We are told that fear came upon every 
soul, that is, upon every member of the 
Church. So it seemed to Luke. Caiaphas, or 
Josephus, even Gamaliel, or any other than 
an inspired seer, would have written, ;i Fear 
departed from every soul." The most the 

.Sanhedrim could discern was that certain 
timid men had grown bo]d and made others 
bold. A Galilean had been executed upon 
the double charge of blasphemy and sedi- 
tion. His disciples had fled and sought con- 
cealment. For more than a month they 
kept in hiding. Then suddenly they reap- 
peared. The hares had become lions. They 
met openly. They chose the most conspic- 
uous places and occasions to publish them- 



18 THE WORLD TO COME. 

selves followers of their dead leader. They 
proclaimed that leader, whom the Jews had 
condemned for blasphemy and the Romans 
crucified for treason, the rightful King of 
both. They declared that the supreme 
crime possible to men was the denial of his 
authority. They entered the temple, which 
was the throne of Jewish sovereignty, where 
also a Roman garrison was quartered, and 
there, among civic rulers, exasperated church- 
men, and Roman soldiers, they talked trea- 
son in the name of their lost leader with 
a reckless daring never paralleled by any 
body of men before or since. They rang in 
the ears of Jewish priest and Roman soldier, 
" This Jesus whom ye have crucified is both 
Lord and Christ." Luke describes this 
splendid bravery by saying, "Fear came 
upon every soul " which caught the fine con- 
tagion. 

Luke was a seer. He described, not the 
obvious flower, but the hidden root. These 
men were fearless, he explains, because they 
feared God. That was the root of all their 
brave and beautiful deeds. This Church at 
Jerusalem had come to see Him who is in- 
visible, and to realize that He was not on 
the side of Caiaphas, but of Christ. That 



TEE MODEL CHURCH. 19 

conviction was the foundation of their char- 
acter, the blood of their bravery. As Paul 
afterwards told the Corinthians to do, they 
went forward " perfecting holiness in the 
fear of the Lord." 

The preacher often asks, " Whom do you 
love?" He does well to ask the question. 
But the Bible often asks, " Whom do you 
fear?" "For the fear of the Lord is the 
beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of 
the holy, that is understanding." The man 
who fears God can be afraid of no other 
person ; can fear no thing ; neither life, nor 
death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come." 

Something more than such valor is requi- 
site to Christian manhood, to church prosper- 
ity °, something greater than this, as the oak 
is greater than the acorn. John Baptist is 
less than the least in the kingdom of heaven. 
But without the fear of the Lord, even vir- 
tues are but artificial flowers glued upon the 
tree of life, not leaves for the healing of 
the nations. For where the fear of the 
Lord is not, the fear of men will be, and 
better Cromwell with his thunder than the 
gentlest singer singing soft songs because 
he is afraid to thunder. Better the Levite 



20 THE WORLD TO COME. 

passing by on the other side than a Samari- 
tan pouring in oil and wine because he fears 
the anger of the Jews if he neglects their 
countryman. 

I think the Church in our time has need 
of exhortation to fear God. She is afraid 
of many things because she does not realize 
the awfulness of disobeying Him. 

2. We are told that many signs and won- 
ders were done by the Apostles. That 
Luke records the fact, without pausing to 
relate what the signs and wonders were, is a 
proof of inspired wisdom. Another histo- 
rian would — as so many early Christian 
writers did — have lingered over the mira- 
cles. But Luke does not. He knew that 
miracles were not essential to church life. 
He wrote, not to appease curiosity, but to 
inspire conduct. Therefore he simply notes 
the fact that miracles were wrought, and 
passes on to record what is essential to 
church life. It is as if he had said, " The 
Apostles wrought miracles, but since you are 
not apostles the fact does not greatly concern 
you. But you are believers, and therefore 
need to know what all the believers did, 
and what you must do." 

If we could pray sick men into health or 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 21 

dead men back to life, most of us would 
think that supremely notable, and the news- 
papers would be filled with descriptions of 
the signs and wonders we could work. But 
in describing the Model Church, in which 
such miracles actually were performed, Luke 
diverts attention from them as if he held 
them immaterial ; saying, " The Apostles 
wrought miracles, but all the members of 
the church did these other things." 

3. Upon the next statement the inspired 
writer dwells with careful minuteness, as if 
he considered it supremely important. The 
members of this Church, he tells us, had 
that self-denying affection for each other, 
without which even their bravery would 
have been a king without a sceptre, a Gibral- 
tar with no human garrison upon its breast 
of stone, a skeleton to inspire terror rather 
than a beautiful body of Christ to win love. 

" All that believed were together, and 
had all things common ; and they sold their 
possessions and goods and parted them to 
all, according as any man had need." 

Well did such a miracle of love deserve 
the minute description it received, for it 
was the most perfect realization of heavenly 
society which has yet appeared among men. 



22 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Here, you will observe, is nearly the polit- 
ical economy of a Christian family. All 
things common ; each receiving what he 
needs ; the wisest and best deciding, with 
help of all, what each does actually require. 

Here the Christian ideal was realized as it 
never has been since, and as it cannot be 
realized again, until men are once more 
brought under equally perfect control of the 
Spirit of God. These Christians were able 
to do w T hat no other body of men have been 
able to achieve. Other attempts have been 
made to live in community of property, 
but they have miserably failed. The Apos- 
tles never advised it. Except this once, the 
apostolic churches never attempted it. But 
this Church practised it, and so long as the 
members retained the spirit in which they 
began, they were blessed. No equally con- 
vincing proof, I think, has ever been given 
by any other body of men that they w r ere 
the visible body of Christ, filled with the 
Spirit of God. 

" All that believed were together." Could 
you select a hundred men and women any- 
where on earth who should be able to live 
in the same house, to meet not only once or 
twice a week, but every day, breaking bread 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 23 

together continually, surrounded by most 
bewildering and threatening circumstances, 
each driven by intense convictions, excited 
by most fervid emotions, and have never 
a jar ? Many a church cannot have a fair 
without a quarrel. 

And these Christians had not been 
trained, as we have been, under influences 
which tended to produce in them all the same 
tastes, the same habits. They had come 
from every nation under heaven. Some 
were rich, some were poor. Yet they had 
all things ift common. If only the um- 
brellas in a modern church were held in 
common, on the first rainy day there would 
be trouble. But these Christians held 
houses and lands and all things so. One 
accustomed to luxury resigns his wealth with- 
out repining. Another trained in want gives 
up his poverty without becoming arrogant. 
Each receives, not what he craves, but 
what he needs. If that were tried to-day, 
what murmurings, what snatchings, would 
result ! Let Fourierism, let Brook Farm, 
let the Knights of Labor, reply ! Coleridge, 
I count the most commanding intellect, 
and Southey one of the most perfect char- 
acters, this century has seen. They are 



24 THE WORLD TO COME. 

starting to establish upon the banks of 
the Susquehanna their ideal society. All 
property is to be held in common, and 
peace and brotherhood to be perfected in 
love. But they can get no farther than 
Bristol without striking upon a pocket diffi- 
culty which shatters their golden ship ! 

Born brothers cannot so live when they 
have passed that period of childhood 
which represents the kingdom of God on 
earth. The delirium of anarchy always 
follows when community of property pre- 
cedes. In time the system proved too 
heavenly for even this noble Church to 
maintain. They could not long live on 
angels' food. Others less spiritually-minded 
joined them. Perhaps the original mem- 
bers grew lax. Then began certain Hel- 
lenists to complain that their wddows were 
neglected in the daily ministrations. But 
a considerable time elapsed before murmurs 
disturbed their peace. They rejoiced to- 
gether and praised God continually. No 
one received more than it was best for 
him to have. Each must have loved his 
neighbor as himself. Each must have been 
too zealous about laying up treasures in 
heaven to mind about laying up treasures 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 25 

on earth. The entire Church must have 
been as you have seen a family where sick- 
ness has lifted its sweet sceptre and the 
charity of heaven fills the house. Each 
walks softly ; is eager to watch or to run, 
thinking not of his own things but of the 
things of the sick one, as God thinks of 
the one sheep. Then for a little while the 
wings of death shed the glory of God on 
earth, as if the Father had told him to com- 
fort those that mourn, by giving them some 
right conception of the heaven to which he 
for whom they mourn has been taken. 

This early Church actually realized for a 
season that ideal state which has been the 
dream of humanity in all ages ; which has 
been the aim of all socialists whose failures 
are the blotches of history. This early 
Church realized in fact a social condition 
which George MacDonald has ventured to 
describe only as an insane man's dream of 
heaven. 

Would I have you attempt such an ar- 
rangement here? Would I have you at- 
tempt to kindle a fire with blocks of ice ! 
Community of property would instantly 
draw into your membership those who will 
not dig and are not ashamed to beg. But 



26 THE WORLD TO COME. 

that . it would not do if joining the church 
meant risking your life. Persecution was 
the careful guardian of the Church at Jeru- 
salem. From us that guardian has been 
withdrawn. 

When the right fuel is on the hearth of 
Christ the fire will easily be kindled. Till 
then this picture in the text must stand 
before us as a revelation of the greatness 
of the change we need to fit us for the 
kingdom of heaven. Trying to do what the 
first Church did would be trying to pull 
rosebuds into roses with dental forceps. 
Trying to be what the first Church was will 
water the roots, and make the roses in 
due time appear. 

4. " They continued steadfastly with one 
accord in the temple." Observe the fidelity 
of these men to their trust. The temple 
was God's house. They were God's ser- 
vants, God's children. At the risk of 
their lives they continued to claim their 
rights and perform their duty by worship- 
ping in their Father's house. 

These early Christians were related to 
the temple much as we are related to what 
men call the world. By "the world" 
to-day is meant, not what the Apostles 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 27 

meant by the same expression, but the 
broad life of humanity, the business, the 
pleasure, the arts, the sciences, the indus- 
tries of men. All these are Christ's. It 
is the business of the Church to claim 
them in his name. When false men, when 
wicked men, usurp control of them, the 
Church is cowardly and recreant to her 
Lord if she leaves such men in undisputed 
control of her Lord's possessions. The earth 
is the Lord's and — not the emptiness there- 
of, as some appear to think — but the ful- 
ness thereof. To the last moment, when the 
temple itself was destroyed, the followers of 
Christ claimed it for their Father and his 
Son. There Stephen stood; thither Peter 
and John went daily ; there, when Stephen 
had been stoned and Peter imprisoned, Paul 
asserted his right to be ; thither he returned, 
when he had been cast out, again and again, 
and from the temple at last James the Just 
was hurled. 

Though their dearest, tenderest devotion 
was not here, but in the inner circle of 
believers ; though they met privately, not 
because they feared to meet openly, but be- 
cause it was sweeter to break bread together 
with Christ alone, yet did these brave, kind 



28 THE WORLD TO COME. 

men claim their rights in the temple their 
Father had given them in the world which 
was God's. But what pleasant thing, what 
profitable thing, what thing which men love, 
whether in business, art, science, recreation, 
can be named which some coward Chris- 
tians have not renounced as the property of 
Satan ! 

5. " Praising God." These members of 
the Model Church were glad men, singing 
men. The times were sick. The world 
had never been so sad as in their day. 
There was enormous wealth. There were 
innumerable appliances for pleasure. But 
men no longer enjoyed their books, their 
pictures, their games, their banquets. Dives' 
heart was heavy. Faring sumptuously 
every day, clothed in purple and fine linen, 
the Roman noble kept his bath of per- 
fumed water warm, that he might lie down 
in it, open an artery, and pass without 
pain into what he hoped would be oblivion, 
if some small grain of peril or despondency 
should be added to the burden beneath 
which he continually labored and was 
heavy-laden. Those who were not enor- 
mously and iniquitously rich were extrava- 
gantly poor; not in honorable, sturdy 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 29 

poverty, but in servile beggarly poverty, 
that festered and fawned and chose to 
flatter rather than to starve. The con- 
sciousness of God and immortality had 
vanished from the Roman world. That 
world had become a fetid chamber, in 
which charcoal braziers glowed. Poisoned 
by the fumes and by their own breaths, 
men looked hopelessly into each other's 
ghastly faces and knew not what ailed 
them. They only knew that pleasures no 
longer pleased. 

The first Church was a ventilator opened 
by Christ. The air of heaven rushed in, 
bringing life and joy to smothering human- 
ity. More than any other of its features, 
the joyousness of Christianity first attracted 
and fascinated mankind. The soldiers came 
asking what it was that made men sing while 
they w r ere butchered, though the butchers 
could never sing. And is not the world sad 
to-day ? Is it not faring sumptuously with 
a sickly appetite ? And whence should 
spring the fountain of joy if not from the 
Church of Christ ? Who should be wells of 
water springing up unto eternal life ? 

Would that the world might see in us a 
flock led beside still waters, in green pas- 



30 THE WORLD TO COME. 

tures — a company of men and women "be- 
girt with all the common ills of life, bearing 
all the burdens that weigh down other men, 
but minding those burdens no more than 
travellers mind the dust and cinders that 
fall upon them in the railroad train that 
carries them home ! Then would the world 
observe, wonder, and wish to come among 
us. 

" Joy to the world, the Lord is come." To 
say that to men in some convincing way is 
the business of the Church. 

6. " Having favor with all the people." 
The true way to win men is shown us here. 
For a little while we may win popularity by 
pandering for it. But they who win and 
keep the favor of their fellows are they to 
whom man is little and God is all There- 
fore we read the great distinction of the 
Model Church in this : " The Lord added 
daily to it those who were being saved." 

To such a church nieninust be drawn as 
iron filings to a magnet; a church where 
the fear of the Lord makes the members 
brave, so brave that they can be always 
kind, can wholly love not only one another, 
but even the enemies that stone and kill 
them ; a church filled with men always 



THE MODEL CHURCH. 31 

glad because the springs of tlieir joy are 
high in the hills where drouth never 
comes. Brave, loving, faithful, glad men 
and women, the Church afc Jerusalem was 
indeed the visible body of Christ. There- 
fore men sought to touch it, and as many as 
touched were made whole. 



III. 

TEACH US TO PRAY. 

And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites ; 
for they love to stand and pray in the synagogue and in 
the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. 
Verily I say unto you they have received their reward. 
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner 
chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret 
shall recompense thee. And in praying use not vain rep- 
etitions as the Gentiles do, for they think that they shall 
be heard for their much speaking. — Matt. vi. 5-7. 
(R. V.) 

It is the beginning of the week of prayer. 
In place of the programme offered by the 
Evangelical Alliance, we have assigned for 
the subject of each day one of the seven pe- 
titions in our Lord's Prayer. Selections of 
Scripture calculated either to explain the 
meaning or hold the mind to contemplation 
of the subject of each petition are named 
upon the cards handed you this morning. 
By keeping our thoughts resolutely for an 
entire day upon each of these objects of de- 
sire it is hoped that we shall learn to obey in 




TEACH US TO PRAY. 33 

some measure the command : " After this 
manner therefore pray ye." 

But the dangers against which the Mas- 
ter bids us guard ourselves, whenever we try 
to pray, become especially formidable at a 
time like this. I will try to open your eyes 
to them this morning. 

I. It would be difficult, I think impos- 
sible, to prove that our Lord ever com- 
manded his disciples to pray. " Watch and 
pray, lest ye enter into temptation," is 
shown by the context to be the granting of 
a privilege rather than the enforcement of 
a duty. Jesus always assumes that his dis- 
ciples pray ; teaches them plainly that un- 
less they pray they cannot do what they 
must do. A man cannot work unless he 
eats. The harder he works the more im- 
peratively he will realize his need of food. 
But there are no commandments in any 
code declaring that men shall eat. If they 
have no appetite they cannot ; if they have ? 
they do not need to be commanded. 

But nothing is more common with reli- 
gious teachers than to tell men it is their 
duty to pray, as it is their duty to tell the 
truth. Thus men have been led to assume 
that they can pray by resolving to do so, and 



34 THE WORLD TO COME. 

the result is, so little real prayer tliat per- 
haps a majority are able to doubt whether 
praying is not folly, and to feel the need of 
prayer -tests to prove that our Father in 
heaven is to be thought of in the figure of 
parental considerateness rather than under 
the form of parental obstinacy or deafness. 

Our Lord moved his disciples to pray, not 
by telling them to do so, but by exciting in 
them desires which compelled them to sup- 
plication. When they saw Him with Moses 
and Elias, they began to pray ; when they 
watched Him healing diseases, they began 
to pray ; when they heard Him praying, they 
straightway asked Him to teach them how 
to pray. 

If you are dying through inability to eat, 
you cannot cure yourself by simply resolving 
to swallow food. You must take measures 
to restore your appetite. Neither can you 
pray by direct force of resolution. You must 
put yourself under conditions which will in- 
spire desire for communion with God. 

1. Because for most men it is hard to 
pray, and easy to pretend, we are warned 
against that easily besetting sin. 

" When ye pray, be not as the hypocrites 
are." 



TEACH US TO PRAY. 35 

The hypocrites wanted of the king only to 
be seen in his company. They stood at his 
door that they might be mistaken for his 
friends. 

The same temptation assails us at all 
times, and is acutely dangerous now. It is 
insidious as malaria. It saps the health of 
piety before its presence is suspected ; has 
depraved many an honorable pagan into a 
sanctimonious Pharisee ; and we will be wise 
to remember what Mr. Ruskin has said with 
truth, that " the rottenest thing about a 
rogue is always his religion." 

2. Most of us say grace before our meals. 
If we realize who feeds us, we cannot help 
doing so unless we are brutes. Most of us 
have family worship. If we are alert to 
spiritual facts, it will be more natural to 
omit our meals than our devotions. 

But what are the motives we often hear 
unblushingly advanced for continuing these 
spiritual exercises? The children will be 
surprised if they do not hear grace at table ! 
For the sake of the example upon them, 
daily prayers must be inexorably main- 
tained. 

But is it permitted to pray that we may 
be seen of children, and forbidden to pray 



36 THE WORLD TO COME. 

that we may be seen of men? Coleridge 
says he "once knew a small but (in out- 
ward circumstances at least) respectable con- 
gregation, four fifths of whom professed that 
they went to church entirely for the exam- 
ple's sake; in other words, to cheat each 
other and act a common lie." When the 
minister leads in prayer, you all assume the 
attitude of worship. Not to do so would ap- 
pear ill-bred. Those of you who arrive dur- 
ing prayer-time stand silently in reverential 
attitudes near the door. While you stand or 
sit with closed eyes and bowed heads, are 
you really communing with God ? Are you 
thinking of Him? Is your spirit actually 
employed as your body advertises it to be ? 
If not, why do you assume the attitude of 
worship? I can conceive no other motive 
— though probably no one is aware of it — 
than the desire to be seen of men. I sup- 
pose that is what the dread of appearing ill- 
bred means. Christ forbids us to assume 
attitudes in order that we may appear unto 
men to pray, especially when we are not pray- 
ing. What would be the impression created 
if, while we bowed together in praying pos- 
tures, one should take out a letter and begin 
to read it ; another should speak of a sleigh- 



TEACH US TO PRAT. 37 

ing party ; another begin to cipher upon the 
hymn-book last week's profits, or the chances 
of next week's election ; and another inquire 
how soon the minister would be through? 
No one would be satisfied to have the prayer 
continue in the midst of such a Babel. All 
would summon the minister to stop. 

But does He who looks not at the out- 
side of us never witness a similar confusion ? 
If so, is it strange that what we call our 
"united prayers" have no conspicuous re- 
sults ? 

3. This week every professing Christian 
who does not pray will be powerfully tempt- 
ed to pretend he does. The world expects 
you to pray. Your brethren expect you to 
pray. You expect yourself to pray. De- 
votional meetings are multiplied. They are 
arranged for every day, and several times 
a day. If you attend none of them, with 
your training and views of duty, you cannot 
help feeling in some degree as a soldier feels 
when he shirks his duty. You will therefore 
be tempted to come to the meetings and 
assume the appearance of devotion, in order 
to be seen of those men of whom you your- 
self are one. 

But how can this temptation to pious pre- 
tence be mastered ? 



38 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Christ tells us in the text. The closet is 
the cure for hypocrisy in prayer. There is 
no recorded prayer from our Master's lips 
which could have occupied three minutes in 
its utterance, but we know He often spent 
whole nights in solitary communion with 
God. No man goes into his closet to be seen 
of men, for there men cannot see him. The 
more we have to pray in public, the more we 
must pray in secret, if we preserve the integ- 
rity of our spiritual manhood. 

For this reason the cards inviting you to 
the meetings this week ask you to come 
through your closets. It will be hardly pos- 
sible for any one to read and ponder the 
Scriptures selected and marked for each day, 
without receiving such impressions of God's 
presence and power and love as will make 
men seem small and their opinions trivial. 
If any one is obliged to choose between com- 
ing to the meetings, and carefully pondering 
the readings at home, it will be better for 
him to observe the readings at home, even 
if he has to omit the meetings. Twenty of 
us coming together at the close of a day 
spent in breathing the spiritual atmosphere 
of Moses and Elias, of Paul and John ; at 
the close of a day in which we have walked 



TEACH US TO PRAY. 39 

in imagination each alone from Sinai to Cal- 
vary, or among the kings, the beggars, and 
the peasants of Palestine in the company 
of Jesus, will be able to pray together free 
from all thought of being seen by men. 

II. When we pray, we are forbidden to 
use vain repetitions as the heathen do. The 
Jews had borrowed from Egypt and from 
Babylon the superstition here rebuked. 
They believed there was magical power in 
certain combinations of words. If repeated 
a certain number of times, even by one who 
did not understand their meaning, it was 
held that sickness would be cured and de- 
mons cast out. The foolish notion in later 
times ripened into the system of the Cabala, 
which assumed that mysterious efficacy in- 
hered in a certain arrangement of mere let- 
ters. No one of us supposes himself infected 
by that folly. Yet most of us are. 

There are men, good men, men meaning 
to be honest, who think their prayers must 
be right if they are couched in Scriptural 
phrases. Many say prayers every night and 
every morning, who never pray except when 
they are scared. 

Repeating David's or Isaiah's petitions, 
or even our Lord's Prayer, is not necessarily 



40 THE WORLD TO COME. 

praying because we do it on our knees. Say- 
ing over even the Lord's Prayer is for us a 
vain repetition until we so understand its 
meaning and so sympathize with its spirit 
that the words express our real desires. For 
" vain repetitions " are simply " empty 
phrases," sayings which do not express what 
we really mean. 

1. Most of us dread a spot of silence in 
the prayer meeting. " Let no time be wast- 
ed," from the lips of the leader, implies and 
expresses the general conviction that, even 
when we have nothing to say, it is better to 
say it, because we are praying to be seen of 
men. 

2. One rises to pray. His spiritual devel- 
opment has reached just far enough to make 
him realize God's goodness and desire God's 
care. But only in a vague and general way. 
He begins : " We thank Thee, O God, for 
thy goodness. We pray Thee to take care 
of us." This much is genuine prayer. But 
he feels it will not do to stop yet. He must 
keep on two or three or five minutes at least. 
He catches Scripture phrases, or familiar sen- 
tences which other men have genuinely and 
sincerely spoken. The first twenty seconds 
was prayer, the rest vain repetition. Many 



TEACH US TO PEAT. 41 

a man can pray half a minute, when to pray 
a minute requires more spiritual-mindedness 
than he possesses. 

With no man is the clanger of making vain 
repetitions so great and so constant as with 
the minister. He cannot pray in the great 
congregation unless he has brought him- 
self by much meditation to realize the needs 
not only of himself, but those of other men, 
and made them in some degree his own bur- 
den. 

3. There are certain things we know we 
ought to desire. We feel guilty if we realize 
that we do not. But if we ask for them 
when we do not want them, we are making 
vain repetitions. 

Yet how many pray volubly for Foreign 
Missions who never give a dollar for God to 
employ in answering their petitions! How 
many pray for the divine blessing upon 
their country who do not care enough for 
its welfare to vote ! 

The cure for this habit of making vain 
repetition lies in creating right desires. We 
must learn to know what we need, and to 
desire that. Therefore we are told, — 

III. When we pray, to pray after this 
manner. 



42 THE WORLD TO COME. 

After warning us against praying to be 
seen of men, and against vain repetitions, 
the Master gives positive directions. 

That the words were not material is evi- 
dent because the three evangelists do not re- 
port the same words. The Lord's meaning 
must be, " When ye pray, pray in this 
spirit, with these desires." The prayer tells 
us what we need, but rarely crave. If we 
were sure that one wish, and one only, would 
be granted us this day for the asking, 
would that wish be the petition which stands 
first in the Lord's Prayer? Does not the 
whole tenor of our lives imply that, if we 
were entirely honest with ourselves, the most 
imperative desire of this man is to be rich, 
of that man to be praised, of the third man 
to have the life of his child spared ? You 
will find the prayers in the New Testament 
ask for none of these things except in a 
very subordinate way. It is not forbidden 
to desire them. It is not forbidden to ask 
for them. It is forbidden to desire them 
first, to ask for them first, to labor for them 
first, and that most of us do. Three facts 
appear distinct as sunlight : — 

1. That we shall not pray effectively until 
we pray according to the mind of God. 



TEACH US TO PRAY. 43 

2. That few of us do greatly desire the 
things God desires for us. 

3. That we need such a change of heart 
as shall make us crave what God declares 
we need. 

And this is only another way of saying, — 

1. That we cannot pray effectually until 
we can sincerely pray in the manner of 
our Lord's Prayer. 

2. That few of us can yet do that. 

3. That we need to learn to do so. 

For this reason you are asked to spend 
this week in honest contemplation of that 
prayer. 

My friend and brother ! Suppose no 
mortal were present. Suppose yourself as- 
sured that your dearest wish would be real- 
ized. I will suppose you to have been rich. 
But now you are poor. You are struggling 
against inevitable bankruptcy. To-morrow 
the secret will be out. In the black future 
you see attachments ; you see your long-hon- 
ored credit gone, your good name dragged 
in the dirt, your wife and children in want. 
Now with perfect honesty say, is the first 
desire of your heart, is your dearest wish, 
this : " Our Father who art in heaven, hal- 
lowed be thy name"? If not, be sure it 



44 THE WORLD TO COME. 

ought to be. I have only described the posi- 
tion upon which his disciples were entering 
when Jesus told them to pray " after this 
manner." We need to lay fast hold of those 
influences which will inspire such desires as 
can be faithfully expressed by the petitions 
the Lord would have us offer. 

Widowed wife, the life of your only son 
hanging by a hair, is your first wish " Thy 
will be done ' r ? Then have you not need to 
realize those facts revealed and impressed in 
the Scriptures which will make you turn to 
your Father's love as your son trusts yours, 
and desire that his will may be done, even 
though that means a sword through your 
heart ? 

But weak mortals cannot rise to such 
heights ! We cannot feel thus ! Paul felt 
so. He asked for what he wanted, not for 
what he knew he ought to want. When we 
are filled with desires like his, we shall re- 
ceive blessings like his. When we can sin- 
cerely pray, " Thy kingdom come," be sure 
the kinodom will come. 



IV. 

THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM. 

And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of Hades 
shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou 
shalt hind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatso- 
ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 
— Matt. xvi. 18, 19. (R. Y.) 

The essential difficulty of this passage and 
of the two others it brings to mind is this : 
Jesus told Simon that he should be called a 
Rock-man. He afterwards called him a 
Rock-man. Yet the narrative of the New 
Testament shows that of all the disciples Pe- 
ter was least like a rock. He was the most 
impetuous, the most mobile, the least stable 
of them all. His age, for he appears to have 
been the oldest, his impetuosity, the ardor of 
his affection, and his powers of sympathy 
qualified him for leadership. But in stead- 
fastness which is the characteristic of a rock, 
he was eminently deficient. It is never pos- 
sible to understand our Master's meaning by 



46 THE WORLD TO COME. 

blinking facts, even though our motives may 
be reverential. If we will give due weight 
to the obvious peculiarities of Peter's char- 
acter, it will be evident that the words of the 
text were not intended to remind him of his 
strength, but to warn him of his weakness. 

The context implies as much : " Blessed 
art thou, Simon Bar Jonah." Immediately, 
as if another fact needed to be kept in mind, 
our Lord adds, " I also say unto thee." 
Then follows the text. 

It emphasized by repeating in three dis- 
tinct illustrations the same fact. These are 
the pictures : — 

1. A building — the Church — of which 
Peter is to be the foundation stone. 

2. A city or a house in which Peter is to 
be the porter. 

3. A wood-yard or a fountain where Pe- 
ter is to bind the loads or the water- jars 
upon the carriers who bear them into the 
city. For observe it is not " whomsoever ye 
bind," but "whatsoever ye bind." 

Thus Peter is reminded that he is to serve 
as the foundation of a building, the porter 
of a dwelling, a binder or unbinder of loads. 

In each of these figures the enrphasis be- 
longs not, where it has been carelessly 



THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM. 47 

placed, upon the words "rock," "keys," 
" bind on earth," but upon those which ex- 
press the importance of the work to be done. 
The common laws of Greek emphasis sug- 
gest if they do not compel the reading: 
" Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I 
build my church, and the gates of Hades 
shall not prevail against it" i. e. the church 
which shall endure for ever ; the point of 
the illustration being the permanence of the 
building. 

" I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven." The attention is here 
drawn to the value of the trust. 

" Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth 
shall be bound in heaven" The momentous 
nature of the issues at stake is emphasized. 

Suppose yourself a master builder. You 
say to the masons, " I mean on these founda- 
tions to rear a structure that shall endure 
until the last trumpet sounds." Certainly 
you would be understood as warning the 
masons to exert their utmost care. 

You serve in a great mansion. The mis- 
tress, intrusting you with keys, explains : 
" These are the keys, not of the ash-bin, but 
of the medicine-chest and the silver closet." 

You are a physician. You see me bind- 



48 THE WORLD TO COME. 

ing a load upon the back of my child, and 
tell me it will curve his spine for life to 
carry that. 

In each of these figures the same truth 
was pressed upon Peter. " Be faithful, be 
steadfast, for tremendous responsibilities are 
placed in your charge." This was the les- 
son Peter most needed to be taught. It was 
the lesson Christ in other ways and at other 
times urged upon him. It was the lesson 
which in a few moments, when the Master 
shall be compelled to rebuke his wilfulness, 
Peter will hear repeated in the stern utter- 
ance, " Get thee behind me, Satan." 

I. It is apparent therefore why the words 
of the text were first and specially addressed 
to Peter. For Peter we know was, of the 
eleven, the most likely to forget his trust. 
He oftenest had occasion to repent. He 
oftenest needed forgiveness. For Peter Je- 
sus showed the most solicitude. Peter He 
warned most earnestly. For Peter He prayed 
that his faith might not fail. It was Peter 
whose fidelity, faltering in time of trial, He 
strove to steady beforehand by reminding 
him of the magnitude of his trust. It was 
Peter whom, at the last supper, He prepared 
for the coming storm by putting him spe- 
cially in charge of the rest. 



THE KEYS OF TEE KINGDOM. 49 

If you were leaving the house in your 
children's care, you would warn them all to 
watch until you returned. But upon the 
one whom you knew to be most heedless 
you would strive most earnestly to impress 
the danger of playing with matches. To the 
one you thought most passionate and way- 
ward you would say, " Kemember, the credit 
of the family rests with you ; see to it that, 
whatever the others do, you are kind and 
gentle." So Jesus, when He began to fore- 
tell his own departure, reminded Peter how 
much depended upon him, and said to him, 
" Strengthen thy brethren." 

II. Neither of the three illustrations used 
by Christ was new to the disciples. They 
had heard Him denounce the priests at Je- 
rusalem for precisely that misuse of divinely 
given opportunities against which He is now 
.warning themselves. Those priests also had 
been divinely commissioned to be founda- 
tions in the kingdom of God, and porters to 
open unto men. They, too, had been ap- 
pointed to unbind heavy burdens. But they 
had perverted their functions to the service 
of their pride, and, though they had been 
chosen to minister as children of heaven, 
the Master himself described them as the 
" children of hell." 



50 THE WORLD TO COME. 

The man wlio was at the moment the most 
prominent example of Jewish priestcraft — 
who stood before the world as the head of 
that godless, selfish, arrogant, ambitious, 
avaricious, unscrupulous, and cruel hierarchy 
for the reformation of which our Lord never 
expressed a hope, the high priest who de- 
clared it was expedient that Christ should 
die — was also named Kock - man. 1 That 
wicked and apostate priest was, not so much 
by his own individuality as by his repre- 
sentative position, the conspicuous example 
of all that a disciple ought not to be, — of 
all that Peter would become unless the im- 
pulses he had already shown, and would dis- 
play still more clearly before the passing 
interview should end, were eradicated. Jo- 
seph Caiaphas was only Simon Peter refus- 
ing God's gracious guidance and full grown. 
" Get thee behind me, Satan ! " was ad- 
dressed to that infant tendency revealed in 
Peter which, grown to giant proportions in 
the Jewish hierarchy, called forth the su- 
preme denunciations against those whom our 
Lord designated as children " of their father 

1 Cephas and Caiaphas appear to "be the same word, 
though it is right to say that the great authority of Pro- 
fessor Thayer is against the identification. 



THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM. 51 

the devil." To those whose ears were full 
of the awful woes uttered against the Phar- 
isees, at a time when the most influential 
member of that religious sect which Christ 
would certainly destroy was named Roek- 
man, there must have been a tremendous 
warning in the words addressed to the most 
influential member of the organization which 
Christ was about to establish, "Thou, too, 
shalt be called Rock-man, and upon this 
Rock will I build my church." 

The second figure was equally familiar. 
For the disciples had heard their Master de- 
nounce the religious teachers of the time 
because they had taken away the key of 
knowledge intrusted to their care, and would 
neither enter in themselves nor suffer others 
to go in. In a few days they would hear 
their Master cry, " Woe unto you, scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites ! For ye shut up 
the kingdom of heaven against men ! " 
With such denunciations fresh in mind, Pe- 
ter first and the disciples afterwards heard 
our Lord say, "I will give unto you the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven." 

The third figure was equally familiar. 
How often had the twelve heard the Master 
say, as he raised the fallen, healed the sick, 



52 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

preached glad tidings to the poor, and 
opened the prison doors to the prisoners, 
"The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' 
seat ; all therefore whatsoever they bid you 
observe, that observe and do ; but do not 
ye after their works : for they say and do 
not. For they bind heavy burdens and 
grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
shoulders, but they themselves will not move 
them with one of their fingers." The dis- 
ciples knew that their Master came to un- 
bind burdens, and make men free for time 
and for eternity. They knew the leaders of 
the Jewish Church were under his unquali- 
fied denunciation because they had not done 
that, but had bound the burdens they were 
set to loose. And now they hear Him tell 
themselves that to them it is given to loose 
men, not for time alone, but for eternity. 
Woe will it be to them if, wdien they are 
sent to loose, they also bind. 

How sorely Peter needed these warnings 
presently appears. For, the moment Jesus 
began to tell what He meant to suffer for 
the sake of opening the kingdom to men 
and unbinding their burdens, Peter's van- 
ity, ambition, and selfishness, the Caiaphas 
traits in him, aw r oke. He begins to play 



TEE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM. 53 

pope instantly. He protests, and Christ 
answers in the sharpest rebuke ever admin- 
istered to one of the disciples. 

III. We see why these same warnings, 
first addressed to Peter, were repeated, as 
appears from the 18th chapter of Matthew, 
to all the disciples. If those eleven men 
had proved indolent or faithless, the king- 
dom of heaven would not have been opened 
unto us. For to them the keys were given ; 
on them the Church was built ; they have 
unbound the burdens which press men to 
perdition. They were not gods ; they were 
not even angels. They were tempted, as 
their predecessors, the Jewish doctors, had 
been tempted, as all their successors in office 
have been tempted, to pride, to arrogance, 
to indolence, to cowardice. 

IV. Thus the text shows us the Master, 
while laying the foundations of the Chris- 
tian Church, warning the builders against 
that danger which has always been the most 
universal, the most persistent, and the most 
insidious the Church has had to meet. All 
ecclesiastical history bears constant testi- 
mony to the inveterate tendency in the men 
whom Christ sends into the world, as his 
Father sent Him into the world, to repeat 



54 THE WORLD TO COME. 

the crimes of Caiaphas. To make Chris- 
tianity a temporal kingdom rather than an 
eternal power ; to take away from men the 
key of knowledge, and, when ignorance grows 
dense enough to make it possible, to rule by 
fostering superstition rather than by feeding 
faith, — these have been the arch crimes of 
the Church. The kingdom of God has ad- 
vanced only by successive rebellions inspired 
by the Holy Spirit against the usurpations 
of those who were sent forth to minister 
among brethren, but who have insisted upon 
getting themselves called masters and lords, 
and using the towels given them to gird 
themselves for humble services in imitation 
of the Master, as banners to inscribe with 
emblems of pride and flaunt before the eyes 
of men. 

The text says to every one of us who oc- 
cupies in the Church a position of the least 
influence or authority, " The keys of the 
kingdom of heaven are in your hand : see to 
it how you employ them ! Are you enter- 
ing in yourself? Are you opening unto 
others ? " Many are still carrying their 
keys as Peter for a time carried his. Until 
the enemies came, he followed Jesus, disput- 
ing, contradicting, disobeying. Headstrong 



THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM. 55 

in going his own way, lie was continually 
getting himself rebuked. There was little 
peace in that for him. When danger came, 
he shirked. Then he mingled slyly with the 
Lord's enemies. Not much peace in that! 
The cock crew ; he repented and wept bit- 
terly. All the while he carried the key to 
the kingdom of peace unused. He would 
not forget himself, nor obey his Master 
humbly, faithfully. He would be pope. 
When he was content to let another gird 
him, and follow where he did not wish to 
go ; to resign all papal authority and accept 
the fact that, if the Lord would have John 
tarry till He came, that was nought to him ; 
when he was content to mind his own ways, 
and feed the sheep and the lambs without 
arrogating authority over them, — he entered 
into peace, and was able to open the door 
for himself, and to lead others unto the true 
Bishop and Shepherd of their souls. 

The text asks us also whether we are loos- 
ing burdens or binding them upon men's 
shoulders. There are so many ways in 
which we may do either, and scarcely know 
what we are doing ! 

Here is a little child. It is such an one 
as Jesus took in his arms and said, " Of such 



56 THE WORLD TO COME. 

is the kingdom of heaven." She flutters 
about the house an embodied joy. She 
sings to the ceiling. She shouts to her little 
red shoes. She claps her hands, she knows 
not why, from sheer excess of gladness. 
She kisses the cat. When little tears come 
into her eyes, they are like the dewdrops on 
the rose : the next zephyr dries the flower. 
The queen of happy, unburdened beings is 
a healthy little child ! 

That being of more than fairy brightness 
has become a haggard woman. Discontent 
has ploughed her brow and pinched her 
eyelids. Disappointment and envy reign 
in her eyes and curl her lip. She cannot 
dress as her pride desires. She cannot gain 
the position she craves. All her small arts 
and dissimulations have not won the admi- 
ration for which she pines. She has mar- 
ried and her husband is no hero. She has 
children whom she loves, but she is ashamed 
because she cannot dress them richly as the 
children of her neighbors. She must toil 
by day and watch by night. Life is a bur- 
den, and she is afraid to die. The fierce, 
unresigned, discontented spirit will not be 
changed by death. The grave cannot take 
off the burden she bears. She must carry 
it into eternity. 



THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM. 57 

Wlio bound the burden on her? The 
mother tliat bore her, the father that trained 
her in maiden years. Neither taught her the 
true facts of life and peace. They did not 
surround her with an atmosphere of love for 
God and trust in Him. They never taught 
her to go, as Mary went, to One who casts 
out all devils, whether they be vanity, care, 
anxiety, or fear ; to One who makes the ves- 
sel tossed by the storm to be " in a great 
calm." They taught her to take much 
thought for this world, saying, " What 
shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and 
wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " Until 
she had been long under their charge, she 
cared for none of those things. She was in 
the kingdom. 

But there are women who cannot be 
bound. They are crowned queens. When 
sickness desolates their homes, when the hus- 
band fails, money goes, drudgeries increase, 
through days of toil and nights of watching, 
they say, by eye, voice, gesture, " Be not 
afraid ! Let not your heart be troubled." 
And when death comes, they smile in the 
eyes of their beloved one and say, " Do not 
be sad for me ! It is not such a hard thing 
to die!" 



58 THE WORLD TO COME. 

You shall find, when you receive the con- 
fidences of such women and learn the secret 
of their lives, that they often think of their 
mothers ; that, when they were little chil- 
dren, they were taught, how they cannot al- 
together tell, but they were taught to realize 
that the unseen world is more real than the 
visible, and that all the things which make 
men afraid are shadows cast by a sun which 
will never set. Their mothers taught them 
that, and they teach it to their children. 

Such is the loosing which pastors and 
deacons are sent into the Church to accom- 
plish, and the opposite of that is the binding 
of which pastors and deacons are warned 
with appalling distinctness to beware. 



V. 

SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 

And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee ; but 
let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at 
my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having 
put his hand to the plough., and looking back, is fit [ lit. 
" well placed," t. e. in the right attitude ] for the king- 
dom of God. — Luke ix. 61, 62. 

Let us beware of drawing from these 
words the foolish inference that it is better 
not to plough than to plough poorly ; better 
to stay behind than to glance behind. It 
is folly not to do the best we can because 
we cannot do better than we can. Some are 
waiting until they are perfect Christians be- 
fore they will begin to be Christians at all. 
Pride, aping humility, makes them ashamed 
to creep, and therefore they never learn to 
walk. 

But our Lord was not speaking to one in 
danger of making that mistake. He was 
showing a disciple how to do in the right 
way what the disciple was undertaking to 
do in a wrong way. 



60 THE WORLD TO COME. 

The man had decided to go with Jesus. 
He asked leave only to return home and bid 
farewell to his family. He might never see 
them again. His request seems innocent 
and amiable. Yet Jesus replied to him : 
" You are beginning in a wrong way. You 
are like a farmer trying to plough with his 
eyes behind him." 

Like certain other utterances of our Lord, 
that of the beam and the mote, of the old 
and new bottles, for example, this one glows 
with a sweet and subtle humor. Those who 
have watched a ploughman at his work will 
appreciate the figure, for it would be easy 
to show that, though the appearance of an 
Oriental ploughing with young steers was 
radically different from that of an American 
ploughing with horses, the sight of either 
would produce with almost equal vividness 
the impression upon which the significance 
of the text depends. 

Perhaps no other kind of labor demands 
a more intense concentration of muscle, 
mind, and will, towards a single purpose, 
than does ploughing. The ploughman must 
note every motion of his two draft-horses. 
If either lags, the other will jerk the share 
out of line. What each brute intends must 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 61 

be foreseen, and loitering steps prevented 
by voice or whip. The ploughman must ob- 
serve each root and stone before him, and 
be ready by swift and dexterous twist to 
cut through the one or ease over the other. 
His eye must be upon the drawing beam, 
for, if it too abruptly leaves the level, the 
handles, wrenched from his grasp, may hurl 
him aside or strike him to the ground. He 
must watch the opening furrow, and find 
footing by instant shifts from glebe to glebe 
as the softened earth yields and crumbles 
beneath his weight, or he will be thrown. 
Alert to each of these requirements, he must, 
like the steersman of a vessel, steadily sight 
his bearings by some stationary object far 
in front, or his furrow will curve. All this 
he must do on the jump to economize mo- 
mentum, or his horses may be stalled. It 
is an exhilarating sight to watch the skil- 
ful ploughman, rushing his furrow forward, 
springing from clod to clod, holding the 
handles firm with masterful grip, wrench- 
ing them this way and that with superlative 
force, shouting to his horses, while the sweat 
beads his face and his whole body seems one 
flashing eye, the muscles strained like watch- 
springs in obedience to his stimulated vision. 



62 THE WORLD TO COME. 

So the yachtsman steers the craft that 
moves with bellying sail amid the ships and 
buoys and reefs and shallows of the crowded 
harbor. 

""Skipper, you almost grazed that reef ! 
Look back ! the wake line touches the surf ! " 

But the skipper does not look back. His 
business is, forgetting those things that are 
behind, to reach forth unto those things that 
are before. One glance backward may bring 
wreck or collision. 

Add to the skipper's gaze, the straining 
muscles, the beaded brow, the energetic mo- 
tion, and you have the ploughman ploughing 
as he should. 

While such an one presents a glorious 
emblem of victorious achievement, a man 
trying to plough with his eyes behind him 
is an equally impressive picture of pitia- 
ble impotence. Xo longer master of the 
strength of wood and iron vivified by vast 
brute force, he has become its slave. Flung 
hither and thither by each of an hundred 
obstructions, he is dragged forward, bruised, 
bewildered, until the handles are wrenched 
from his grasp and he is dropped or dashed 
upon the ground. Far better, far nobler 
even that, than not to try at all ! But how 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 63 

different the appearance of the ploughman 
doing his work aright ! 

This pitiable picture our Lord held, as if 
it had been a mirror, before the disciple who 
wished to leave him only long enough to say 
farewell to friends he might never see again. 

Life is here figured as a field w r hich God 
has set us to plough. Upon it three classes 
of men appear : 

1. There are those who move without 
regard to their orders or their duty. Their 
purpose is to live as easily and pleasantly as 
possible. They mean to enjoy the present ; 
to enjoy virtuously, if that may be, but to 
enjoy. What questions may be asked them 
by and by, they refuse to consider. 

Of such the text says nothing. 

2. There are others trying to plough with 
their eyes behind them. They have seized 
the plough in order to be dra,wn by it to 
heaven But they have found life no sum- 
mer sea over which they can be carried 
smoothly gliding. They have found it an 
unbroken prairie that must be ploughed as 
it is passed. They are continually tripped 
and thrown by unexpected obstacles. They 
do not find the joy they crave. When de- 
mands upon their energies increase, they are 



64 THE WORLD TO COME. 

disturbed. When tribulation or persecution 
ariseth because of the word " by and by they 
are offended." Thus they learn by sad ex- 
perience that religion which is not wings is 
always chains. 

3. But there are men who begin and con- 
tinue the Christian life as the instructed 
ploughman runs his furrow. 

Let us mark three points in the Master's 
illustration which give reply to certain 
questions often asked of Christians by the 
world, by their own hearts, by the Holy 
Spirit : — 

1. Why does God's kingdom come so 
slowly ? Why is the Church not stronger ? 
Why are my prayers so cold, so few ? 

One could scarcely glance upon the plough- 
man at his work, remembering Christ's words 
the while, and ask these questions twice. 
The marvel would rather seem to be that 
the kingdom does increase. 

Survey the field of Christian ploughmen. 
Some are absorbed in watching and in 
criticising other people's furrows. Some 
are gazing back upon their own, recalling 
past experiences, at times anxiously, which 
is bad ; at times proudly, which is worse. 
How few are eagerly alert to the work they 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 65 

themselves are set to do ! How few are even 
sure that they have furrows to plough ! 

2. The Lord's words bring an answer to 
another question of serious practical import. 

It is said the Church is losing, if she has 
not already lost, her hold upon young men. 
It is said that while the feeble come to her 
for help, while children rest in her bosom 
contented until they begin to think, while 
the sick and the sad seek solace in her 
arms, the stalwart, the commanding, the 
masterful no longer show the old alacrity in 
responding to her call. I will not pause to 
debate the truth of the assertion. You know 
that it is often made. When thistle-down 
is in the air, there must be thistles in some 
man's farm, and therefore all farms are in 
danger. 

A distinctive characteristic of Christ's 
work was the enthusiasm He created among 
young men. The noblest, the most enter- 
prising, the strongest were the quickest to 
take fire from his touch. We read of no 
young man who opposed Him, of no old 
man who followed Him. Why is this not 
true now? We are told the young refuse 
to join Christ's Church, because in youth the 
passions are imperative, and, until pleasures 



66 THE WORLD TO COME. 

have begun to pall, men are loath to sacri- 
fice the seen to the unseen, the temporal to 
the eternal. But the statement is not true. 
It is accurately the reverse of true. The 
young have always been readiest to give 
themselves for ideals. It is when life is 
fullest and sweetest that men are quickest to 
renounce it on due occasion given. "Who, 
when the guns began to thunder, rushed to 
Sumter and to Richmond ? Who, when 
danger threatens, are expected to be first 
in the breach ? Always and everywhere that 
class which to-day is deemed most loath to 
join the Church ; the class which was most 
prompt to follow Jesus eighteen hundred 
years ago, — young men, young women, in 
the ardor and energy of life's spring. Why 
does Christ now appear less captivating to 
the strong and to the able ? 

Is not an answer found in this, that we no 
longer preach Him with the old heroic ring ? 

There are so many weak ones, so many 
sufferers in the world ! The Master's words 
to them are so endlessly winning, that we 
have been moved to repeat those words out 
of all due proportion, while we neglect his 
more strenuous calls. 

" Blessed are they that mourn, for they 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 67 

shall be comforted." But many do not 
mourn. Has Christ no message for them ? 

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But 
multitudes are not heavy laden. To multi- 
tudes the idea of rest is repugnant, because 
they are not weary. They carry life as a 
hunter bears his gun through an unflushed 
preserve. Has Christ no words for them ? 
Ay, verily ! But how rarely are those words 
repeated ! 

The current conception of a Christian is 
taken more largely from " Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress " than from the Bible. In the New Tes- 
tament the Christian is painted, not as one 
flying from a doomed city, but as a stalwart 
farmer ploughing the old growths of the old 
world under, until visions of a new earth no 
less than of a new heaven fill his horizon. 
He appears digging, as men dig who have 
discovered gold. He is called a fisherman, 
and what that means I have learned not 
only from much communion with my trout- 
rod, but still more clearly from watching the 
deeds of obscure heroes who sail in winter 
from Gloucester and Cape Breton ; "a war- 
rior," which means to me Grant or Sheri- 
dan ; " a wrestler," and the sight of two 



68 THE WORLD TO COME. 

muscular giants clinched for thirteen minutes 
in the tense, unyielding strain of the Greeeo- 
Roman grip, till the bursting of a blood- 
vessel forces one of them to give way, may 
teach the interpretation of that word ; " a 
runner" of races (read Morris's " Atalanta" 
for that) ; " a boxer" (remember the marble 
Danioxines for that) ; " a flasher of light " 
(let Minot's on dark nights be your lexicon 
for that) ; and, superlative synonym for 
ceaseless, immeasurable splendor, of gener- 
ous and helpful energy, " a follower," that is, 
"an imitator," "of Jesus Christ." Could 
you find a series of illustrations less sugges- 
tive than these of an average modern prayer- 
meeting ? 

The portrait of a Christian painted by 
the Master, which hangs foremost in the 
gallery of the gospels, represents a man 
with eyes flashing, nerves quivering, mus- 
cles corded, brow beaded, blood dancing, in- 
tellect quickened, heart bounding : " I am 
come that they might have life, and that 
they might have it more abundantly." 

Is a woman trembling among the Phari- 
sees, show her Christ standing beside her as 
Great Heart caring for Christiana and her 
children. Is Mary mourning for her brother, 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 69 

tell her that Jesus wept. But is a young 
man in the unslipped leash of life quivering 
with exultant expectation, make him see in 
Christ the Master of the chase. 

The Christian has come to be thought of 
as one who endures rather than as one who 
does ; as dead to this world rather than as 
alive to the eternal ; as one who renounces 
toys rather than as one who takes victo- 
riously treasures ; as one ceasing to serve 
Satan rather than as one beginning to serve 
God. In our thought, we define him chiefly 
by negatives. He does not lie, nor steal, 
nor envy, nor bear false witness, nor rebel 
overmuch against God's providence. Until 
we break through some of these negations 
we rarely question our right to wear the uni- 
form of Him who rides forth conquering 
and to conquer. 

But the strong and the ardent hate nega- 
tives. If I say of the sun, " It is not red, 
nor blue, nor green, nor square, nor near," 
all that I say is true, and only the more 
false for being true. Say rather, " The sun 
is all colors transfigured into dazzling radi- 
ance, piercing everywhere, and quickening 
all things that have life." It is what a man 
is and does, never what he is not and does 



70 THE WORLD TO COME. 

not, that truthfully describes him. But we 
have unconsciously come to define the Chris- 
tian — not articulately, but in our thoughts 
— as one " who never does to others what 
he would not have others do to him." 
You have sung it in popular hymns, you 
have read it in Sunday-school books, you 
have heard it in the nursery when Charlie 
pinched Jamie. " How would you like to 
be treated so ? You must never do to others 
what you would not have them do to you." 
That is no definition of a Christian. It is 
the definition of an oyster. Let us get it 
right in our inmost thought : " All things 
whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them." That will 
send us into life-boats to rescue drowning 
women when other men are afraid to go ; 
up ladders into burning houses, and into 
cities plagued with yellow fever, when other 
men are afraid to go ! That will send us 
into hospitals singing cheerful songs when 
our own hearts are sad ; will make us stand 
for the weak against the strong ; for the 
truth when lies are popular. That will 
make us kind to those who revile us, honest 
to those who cheat us. That will make us 
treat our fiercest afflictions as the fine fur- 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 71 

nace treats the coal which it receives black 
and heavy into its own heart, but sends forth 
to others transmuted into warmth and light. 
That will set those who waste life whining 
over their troubles to singing of their mer- 
cies, and w T ill convert all pharisees and hyp- 
ocrites into loyal men and true. For it will 
force us to realize that whatever creeds may 
say, whatever experiences in the past, hopes 
for the future, or emotions in the present 
may have seduced us to believe, the Master 
has given us no warrant to call ourselves 
Christians, or to hope that we are building 
upon the rock, unless we have begun to " do 
these sayings of mine." 

3. One other question presses upon many 
who read the text. 

" Let me first go bid them farewell which 
are at home, at my house." Was the Mas- 
ter's reply intended to rebuke the disciple 
for loving his family, — to teach him not to 
care for wife and child ? 

Altogether the reverse, I think. The man 
assumed that to follow Christ was to forsake 
his family. It was the fatal blunder made 
by most Christians some centuries later, 
when they conceived that to run away from 
their duties, and try to save their souls by 



72 THE WORLD TO COME, 

hiding in caves or monasteries, without a 
thought of the world their Master came to 
deliver, was the proper way to obey Him. 
To grant the man's request would have 
confirmed him in his error. It was needful 
to teach him that he could effectually care 
for wife and child only by following with 
unswerving gaze and unfaltering foot the 
Lord who gave them to him. No man ever 
obeyed Christ in singleness of heart without 
discovering that fact. This disciple, if he 
obeyed, learned it in due time, and learned 
it effectually, though when or how he learned 
it we are not told. 

Here is wisdom: to look upon wife and 
children remembering not that Jesus Christ 
has given them to you, — which is the fruitful 
parent of strikes and lockouts, and divorces 
and anarchies of every kind, — but that God 
has given you to them ; to look upon your 
country remembering that Jesus Christ has 
given yourself and your family to it ; to con- 
sider all nations, and realize that Jesus 
Christ has given you, your family, your 
country, to the world which He came to rec- 
oncile to God. Follow Christ thus, and as 
far as in you lies you shall save all. Re- 
verse this order, place Christ last, or sec- 



SPIRITUAL PLOUGHING. 73 

ond, and as far as in you lies you shall lose 
all. 

There are still those who fancy, " If I 
follow Him I must say farewell to my dear 
ones, for they will not come with me." The 
text is only one of many proofs which teach 
us that not to follow Christ is to say to our 
dear ones, " Farewell forever." 



VI. 

JERICHO. 
They took the city. — Joshua vi. 20. 

The children of Israel had crossed the 
Jordan. Forty years they had wandered in 
" that great and terrible wilderness." With 
hunger and thirst they were familiar. At 
last their eyes, long scorched with the glare 
of burning sands, are cooled by the sight of 
streams and grass. In place of arid plains, 
dreary gulches, angry crags, they see a rich, 
a tropical fertility. Fields of grain carpet 
the lowland ; palm groves offer delicious 
shade ; vineyards and olive orchards have 
come to view. The sterile waste is behind ; 
the land that flows with milk and honey is 
before them. Their eyes behold its beauty ; 
their feet press its margin. 

Athwart the alluring garden rises a bar- 
rier strong and grim. Directly in their path 
stands Jericho, the military key to Pales- 
tine. Jericho must be captured, or the forty 



JERICHO. 75 

years of journeying through deserts will 
prove futile. 

The obstacle may well have seemed insu- 
perable. It was a walled city, probably the 
strongest in Southern Syria. In the time of 
Joshua, the science of military defence was 
better understood than the science of attack. 
Cities could build walls which assailants 
could not breach. Even ten centuries later 
a properly constructed fortress was impreg- 
nable to any artillery invented. Before 
Moses left Egypt the Cyclopean walls de- 
scribed by Dr. Schliemann had been raised 
at Tyrens and Mycene. The walled cities 
of Palestine, though not like them of stone 
but of brick, were imposing structures. The 
sight of them inspired such terror in the 
spies sent forth by Moses, that they fled 
back to their countrymen declaring the con- 
quest of the land impossible, for they had 
seen cities " walled and very great." These 
walls of solid masonry, probably from thirty 
to seventy feet in thickness, and so high that 
the spaces they enclosed were described as 
"fenced up to heaven," defied direct as- 
sault. 

Of the many fortresses in Palestine,, Jeri- 
cho appears to have been the most nearly 



76 THE WORLD TO COME. 

impregnable. Tile Israelites had no siege 
engines; neither battering-ram, nor cata- 
pult, nor moving tower. Their only weapons 
were slings, arrows, spears. Against the 
walls of Jericho these were as straws and 
thistle-down. 

There were two other passes by which 
Joshua might have entered the Promised 
Land. Neither of them was guarded. It is 
significant that God conducted him across 
the Jordan at the point where the strongest 
fortification in the country stood directly in 
his way; the point where the sole alterna- 
tives before him were victory that seemed 
impossible, or defeat that would be ruin. 

Once before the Israelites had entered 
Palestine. Then they approached from the 
south, crossed the border unopposed, and 
fled back before they were attacked. But 
in conquering Jericho they virtually subdued 
the Promised Land. 

I. No good or permanently pleasant pos- 
session is ever gained in this world except by 
overcoming obstacles. Jericho always bars 
the entrance to the Promised Land. We see 
some object of desire. We see the diffi- 
culties in the way. We wish they were re- 
moved. We attack them, if we dare, for 



JERICHO. 77 

the sake of what we see behind them. But 
in conquering our Jericho we always win 
something more precious than we see or seek. 
Is it wealth one longs for? It must be 
earned by toil, frugality, self-denial. Indo- 
lence must be overcome. Unless these diffi- 
culties have been mastered, wealth is no 
blessing. There are no beatitudes save 
such as are approached by steep and narrow 
ways. 

Self-control, self-respect, — for these we 
must fight ! A man has yielded to the bad 
sceptre of his passions. He wishes those 
passions were less strong. He forgets that 
only Bucephalus controlled can carry Alex- 
ander. He would escape temptation, and so 
elude transgression and subsequent remorse. 
True, the only peace possible to passionate 
men is the peace won by self-conquest, but 
" greater is he that ruleth his own spirit 
than he that taketh a city." 

If only a man's purpose is right, every 
obstacle which keeps him from attaining it 
is there by God's own appointment. It is 
there for him to conquer. By God's grace 
he can conquer it, and by the victory he 
will gain more than he has asked or thought. 

II. Consider the preparations. Two con- 



78 THE WORLD TO COME. 

clitions were essential. The people must be 
prepared for victory. The obstacle must be 
removed. 

1. For seven days the Israelites were kept 
marching around Jericho. They had never 
seen a walled city. Xot in Egypt, for only 
two of them had been there. Xot in the des- 
ert, for it contained none. Day after day 
they were forced to gaze upon the stupen- 
dous structure. From every point of view 
they were compelled to scrutinize its strength. 
Time is needed for objects really great in 
nature or in art to exert their full effect 
upon the mind. Niagara grows as we gaze 
upon it. Conversation was forbidden. It 
might divert attention. In silence the sol- 
diers contemplated the mighty walls. Every 
hour forces them to feel more keenly that 
their own strength is impotence. It is flesh 
against brick and mortar. That every man 
of them must have realized before the seven 
days had passed. Xot only do the besiegers 
learn to appreciate their weakness, but they 
advertise it to their foes. When first the 
rumors of an impending invasion reached 
the city, it was filled with panic. But as 
the strangers marched round and round the 
walls, fear of them must have changed into 



JERICHO. 79 

contempt. One can almost hear the jeers 
from Jericho. " Do these unarmed vaga- 
bonds expect to capture us by blowing 
horns ? " For, while the invaders marched 
in silence, ever and anon their priests blew 
upon trumpets quick, short, triumphant 
notes, such as in later times were used, 
echoes from this experience at Jericho, to 
usher in the year of jubilee. 

These notes seemed to say to 'the chosen 
people : " Take heart, our victory is sure ! " 
The more the army become impressed with 
its own impotence, the more amazing must 
these tones have appeared. The soldiers' 
eyes reported, with constantly increasing em- 
phasis, " Victory is impossible ! " But their 
ears, catching the triumphant notes from the 
trumpets of the Levites, reported continu- 
ally, " Victory is sure ! " 

My friends, have you never been subjected 
to a similar discipline ? Have you never 
been brought to a wall great and high with 
no implement with which to pull it down ? 
Have you never been beset with difficulties 
which seemed to increase as you faced them ? 
You walk around your Jericho. You see no 
place that can be breached ; no open gate ; 
no crevasse through which even one arrow 



80 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

can be shot. Hope begins to pass into de- 
spair. But listen. Open your ears to the 
notes that are blown for you by the trum- 
peters of God : — 

" Behold, I will not fail thee nor forsake 
thee." 

" They that are for thee are more than 
they which are against thee." 

" When my father and my mother for- 
sake me, then the Lord will take me up." 

" No good thing will He withhold from 
them that walk uprightly." 

" Let not your heart be troubled, neither 
let it be afraid." 

" Fear not, little children." 

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
my words shall not pass away." 

It is not when the victory is won that we 
need these promises. Blessed is the man 
who listens to the trumpets of jubilee while 
his eyes are fixed on the walls of Jericho. 

2. Meantime God is not idle. The walls 
must be removed, or the city cannot be 
taken. Though no sign appears, they are 
being sapped. Slowly, inexorably, subter- 
ranean fires are kindling. Silently, through 
the seven days of preparation, the earth- 
quake has been running mines beneath the 



JERICHO. 81 

doomed city. Unconscious of their invisible 
antagonist, the men of Jericho look down 
upon their visible assailants with scorn and 
sneer. Conscious of their unseen Helper, 
the men of Israel look up at their visible 
foes and wait — watching. How they know 
not, when they know not, but that victory 
will be theirs they know. Theirs only to 
obey ; theirs only to stand ready ; theirs to 
believe and rest in the Rock that is higher 
than they, higher than the walls of Jericho. 
For they know they are obeying God. 

My friends, it is always true that every 
obstacle which hinders goodness, every for- 
tress which guards wickedness, is being un- 
dermined. Right rules. Wrong is doomed 
in this world. If you are on God's side ; 
if your plan is right, your purpose pure, — 
your triumph is certain. Whatever hinders, 
whatever threatens, will go down. You may 
not see when or how. Wickedness often 
seems impregnable. But right is omnipo- 
tent. To-day Judas seems wise, Jesus un- 
wise. But look again to-morrow. There 
is nothing so hard to believe, but there is 
nothing more true, than this : till the judg- 
ment of the prince of this world cometh, the 
prince of this world always seems stronger 



82 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

than the King of heaven. But the prince 
of this world is doomed. It is when men 
doubt this that the faith which saves fails 
them. Oh for the faith which, though it 
sees Christ fettered, convicted, crucified, and 
saying, " It is finished, " still believes that, 
when the city which rejects Him is ploughed 
and sown with salt, its inhabitants nailed 
upon crosses over which carrion eagles gath- 
er, the crucified One shall stretch his sceptre 
from sea to sea, and lead the isles rejoic- 
ing in his law ! 

Be anxious about nothing but your duty. 
No Joshua, whom we may unquestioningly 
follow, stands before us. Whether we are 
doing God's work we must learn by other 
means. But learn we can, and if we are 
doing that, we shall be more than conquer- 
ors through Him that loveth us. 

III. The victory. 

I think the most marvellous fact in the 
narrative we are studying is not the boldness 
of Joshua in laying siege to such a city, nor 
the willingness of his army to begin it, nor 
the patient marching of the seven days, nor 
the amazing catastrophe which ensued, but 
the spirit in which the final assault was 
made. 



JERICHO. 83 

You may fancy the invader's task was 
easy. When the walls were fallen, half 
the defenders perhaps crushed beneath the 
ruins, the remainder by terror incapaci- 
tated for resistance, was it not easy for the 
besiegers to march forward and slay the 
defenceless survivors? If you think so, I 
suspect you have not well considered the 
narrative. I know you have never experi- 
enced an earthquake. The marvel is that 
the invaders did not themselves fly, or stand 
petrified with terror until their opportunity 
was past. 

Joshua's army was certainly less than 
two miles, probably less than a quarter of 
that distance, from Jericho. It lay in the 
edge of a palm-grove. Any shock sufficient 
to prostrate the massive walls of the city 
must have extended far beyond his camp. 
We must remember the necessary concomi- 
tants of a convulsion such as here occurred. 
They would have produced in a common 
army only panic and impotence. 

The Israelites stood in battle line. At a 
divine intimation, they are ordered to raise 
the battle-cry. At that moment the solid 
earth beneath their feet begins to shudder, 
to quake, to heave in billows like the sea. 



84 THE WORLD TO COME. 

The tall palms sway like mainmasts. Some 
fall crashing to the ground. From the rocky 
defile on ' their right, crags and loosened 
boulders plunge with terrific noise upon the 
plain. Clouds of dust and sulphurous smoke 
obscure the sun. Electric discharges make 
the thickened air lurid, or thread the gloom 
with lines of fire. Thunderous detonations 
roar down the ravine that debouches from 
the west. The tumult grows fiercer. By 
the lightning's glare the walls that for seven 
days have stood like Gibraltar before their 
eyes are seen' to tremble. Rents appear in 
the solid masonry. The rents gape into 
fissures. Through the rifts terrified men 
are visible. Suddenly, with the crash of 
avalanches, the walls vanish. They do not 
oscillate, they only disappear. Before the 
awful reverberations have ceased, the order, 
passed from trumpet to trumpet, rings along 
the line, " Charge ! " Then every man 
moved straight forward, over the heaving 
earth, over the debris of shattered rocks and 
crushed palms, through the dust and sul- 
phur clouds. How do these soldiers know 
the earth may not open and ingulf them? 

Let such experience occur to an ordinary 
army, it would help them not at all until 



JERICHO. 85 

hours had passed. Imagine what your emo- 
tions would have been. Would you not have 
felt that omnipotent power was working in 
wrath, or that the forces of nature were 
blindly destroying? 

But the Hebrews felt it was their God 
working for them. The earthquake was his 
voice. Therefore it could not harm, it must 
help them. Forty years of training had 
taught them this. They believed in Him 
who had parted the Red Sea, and shown 
himself in pillars of fire and of cloud for 
their sakes. 

Such is the faith Christians need to-day. 
There is gloom on the faces of many, even 
among God's people. Anxiety is in their 
hearts. And why? Because the walls of 
Jericho are rocking, the walls of Jericho are 
falling. 

The civil, the industrial, the religious 
world on both sides of the sea is troubled 
as in our time it has not been before. At 
the beginning of last winter, a few owners 
of coal-mines in Pennsylvania decreed that 
every poor man on the continent should find 
it harder to keep warm than it ought to be. 
700,000 working men, through their rep- 
resentatives at Richmond, encamped with 



86 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

strong entrenchments against that castle of 
Giant Despair. We have all been hit by the 
missiles flying between castle and besiegers. 
Newspapers with large circulations are open- 
ly advocating anarchy, murder, and pillage. 
There is not a man in the country who has 
not been in some way warned of the danger 
threatening from the conflicts of labor and 
capital. What the end shall be no one 
knows. But only the reckless and the 
frivolous are without concern. Herr Most, 
though himself a trifle light as thistle-down, 
by his want of weight serves well to show 
how the winds are setting. 

In the religious world anxieties are many. 
Some fear that the faith delivered us by the 
Apostles is in danger. The splendid work 
once done by the American Board is sus- 
pended. While millions upon millions are 
stumbling and perishing in the darkness at 
home and abroad, those whom Christ has 
commissioned to give them light have ceased 
to hold up the lamp of life while they debate 
whether white light or blue light is the best. 

Many good men feel the ground quaking. 

But let us be full of faith. God is remov- 
ing those things that are shaken, that the 
things which cannot be shaken may remain. 



JERICHO. 87 

Now is the time to pray as we have never 
prayed ! To labor as we have never la- 
bored ! To give money as we have never 
given money for Jesus Christ ! For God is 
multiplying opportunities for true Christian 
work. Men are weary of quibbles, though 
many religious teachers have not yet discov- 
ered the fact. Men are hungry for the true 
bread that cometh down from heaven. God 
has prepared the way for a revival of that 
true religion which consists in loving Him 
with all the heart, and one's neighbor as 
one's self. 

This is the bugle-call to us, this single 
fact, — that never since the world began 
have men been so eager as they are to-day 
to know the simple words and works of Je- 
sus Christ, and so prompt to recognize the 
obligation they are under to obey Him and 
follow in his steps. 



VII. 

GIDEON'S MEN. 

And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hun- 
dred men that lapped will I save you and deliver the 
Midianites into thine hand. — Judges vii. 7. 

The Midianites had conquered Palestine. 
They had not settled in the land, for they 
were rovers. The desert was their ocean, 
camels their ships, Palestine their victual- 
ling and coaling station. Every year, when 
the harvests were ripe, they landed at the 
rich plain of Esdraelon, stripped the country 
of its produce, and, after rioting awhile, as 
pirates in port, swept off again upon their 
wide voyages over the boundless desert. 
They came in irresistible numbers. Their 
chiefs, clad in barbaric splendor, rode upon 
camels caparisoned with trappings of scarlet 
and chains of gold. At their approach the 
Israelites forsook the plain, abandoned their 
flocks and their harvests, and sought safety 
in the caves of the hills. Year after year 
had this shame and terror been repeated, 



GIDEON'S MEN 89 

when Gideon attempted to organize resist- 
ance. 

The tents of Midian covered the plains o£ 
Jezreel when, we read, the Spirit of the Lord 
came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet 
and sent messengers throughout all Manas- 
seh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphthali, the 
tribes which bounded or lay nearest to the 
camp of the invaders. The first blast of 
the trumpet sorted the nation. The servile- 
spirited, the indolent, those who were con- 
tent to endure lives of shame beneath 
oppression and to be dumb driven cattle, 
paid no heed to the trumpet. But all whose 
manhood had not yet been crushed, all in 
whom sparks of patriotism still glowed, all 
who were ready to risk one blow for free- 
dom, rallied at the call. Their number was 
small. Only thirty-two thousand responded 
to the summons. 

The Midianites — like grasshoppers for 
multitude — were encamped upon the plain 
of Esdraelon. That plain, the historic bat- 
tle-ground of Palestine and the garden of 
Southern Syria, shrinks towards the east, 
before it reaches the Jordan, into a narrow 
valley. The south wall of this valley is the 
range of Gilboa. In the time of Gideon 



90 THE WORLD TO COME. 

that range was heavily wooded, and upon its 
northern slope there appears to have been 
a water-course. The channel w T as probably 
dry during part of the year, for no perennial 
stream exists at the spot where the spring 
of Harod seems to be necessarily located by 
the narrative ; and though it is not possible 
to dissent without hesitation from the views 
of Canon Tristram, neither is it possible to 
identify the well of Harod with the spring 
of Jezreel, which flows at the base of the 
hill, without confusing the description of the 
battle. 

In the thick wood upon the north slope 
of Gilboa, beside the upper stream, Gid- 
eon's men assembled. Probably signs of 
panic appeared among them when they per- 
ceived the numbers and strength of their 
foes. Guns in sight are more impressive 
than guns beyond the horizon. But cowards 
will be only an encumbrance here, and that 
Gideon knows. Therefore he issues orders 
for every one who is faint-hearted and every 
one who is afraid to return home before the 
descent from the hill is made. Twenty-two 
thousand departed. This fact, I suppose, 
and not the subsequent panic of the Midi- 
anites, gave the stream the name it bears in 



GIDEON'S MEN. 91 

the narrative, " The Spring of Harod," or 
" Cowards' Creek." 

The ten thousand who remained were all 
brave men. But more than courage was re- 
quired in a battle such as Gideon had to 
fight. 

There had been two sortings already, — 
one by the trumpet, another at " Cowards' 
Creek." A third was needed. There is no 
lesson we need to lay more to heart than 
this: in every strenuous campaign quality 
counts for more than quantity. The mouse 
jeered the lioness for bearing but a single 
cub. " True," replied the lioness, " and you 
have twelve, but my one is a lion." Xerxes 
had nearly two million soldiers, Leonidas 
three hundred. But the three hundred 
were Spartans. The Spirit of God was not 
poured out at Pentecost until the provi- 
dence of God had so sifted the multitude, 
who waved palms before Jesus, that those 
who remained found room in a single upper 
chamber. 

There were two churches in Scotland. One 
of them added to its membership two hun- 
dred and fifty converts in a single year, and 
rejoiced greatly in its growth. The other 
that same twelvemonth gained but a single 



92 THE WORLD TO COME. 

member and lamented its barrenness. But 
the single member was David Livingston, 
and therefore in due time it appeared to all 
men that the " barren had borne seven, while 
she that had many children had waxed 
feeble." 

Because quality counts for more than 
quantity a third sorting was required. 
Therefore Gideon led the ten thousand down 
to the brook of Jezreel, which flows at the 
base of the hill, in sight of the enemy, as if 
advancing to attack. At the stream he 
halted his men to drink. Those who drank 
as cattle drink he was told to send home. 
Those who drank as hounds drink were the 
men for the crisis. 

Men show most certainly their essential 
characters in the trifles they do unconscious- 
ly, and the genius of leadership belongs to 
him who can see the meaning of signs which 
to others appear insignificant, and read, in 
the sparkle of white dust upon the surface, 
that gold-bearing quartz lies beneath. A 
hunter will most easily appreciate the ex- 
quisite accuracy of Gideon's test. But to 
any one who will watch a dog and a cow 
drink water, its purpose will grow plain. 

Oxen fix their eyes upon the stream, glue 



GIDEON'S MEN. 93 

their lips to the water, and drink all they 
want, heedless of everything except the 
slaking of their thirst. You may pound 
them, but they will not move until they have 
had enough. 

Dogs glance at the water, touch their 
tongues to it, but keep their eyes turning 
watchfully hither and thither, as if drinking 
seemed to them a trivial matter, and every 
sense must be kept alert to whatever of 
serious moment may occur. His tongue 
may be parched or swollen, none the less a 
dog always drinks as if slaking his thirst 
were a trifle to be instantly deferred if need 
be. 

So the three hundred did not kneel upon 
the bank, but stood watching, and caught up 
the water in their hands, as if watching, and 
not drinking, were their business. 

I. The attitude reveals concentration and 
persistency of purpose. Success in any 
cause depends in great degree upon having 
an aim and holding stanchly to it. Two 
young men begin life abreast. Both are 
poor ; both are friendless ; both are equally 
gifted. In twenty years one is at the top, 
the other at the foot, of the ladder, only 
because one has turned aside to gather 



94 THE WORLD TO COME. 

flowers, to fly kites, or to sleep. The other 
has refused to be diverted from his aim. 

Paul says he won the race, not because he 
was gifted, not because he was inspired, but 
because he kept his eyes fixed upon the goal. 
Gideon will have only men of one idea. 
That is what our Lord meant in declaring 
that unless we forsake all for Him we can- 
not be his disciples. 

II. A dog drinking is the emblem of 
alertness. Watch him ! If a leaf rustles, 
he sees it and starts. Sights and sounds 
which elude your powers of observation ar- 
rest his. He pauses, seems to consider ; 
dashes away, circles around until assured 
that all is as it should be, then returns to 
resume his drinking. He may do this a 
dozen times before his thirst is quenched. 

The successful man perceives every cir- 
cumstance which bears upon the purpose of 
his life. Success is the right use of oppor- 
tunities which pass us with the speed of 
wings never to return. Opportunity, says 
the Eastern proverb, has a beard, but no 
back hair. You may catch and hold it 
from before, but never from behind. 

The French are being driven at Auster- 
litz, when Napoleon observes that the Eus- 



GIDEON'S MEN. 95 

sian columns are charging over a frozen 
lake. He orders his gunners to fire at the 
zenith. The descending balls pound the ice 
into fragments ; the Russian column is de- 
stroyed, and so defeat is converted into that 
victory which Victor Hugo affirms to be the 
most brilliant known to history. 

Paul walking the streets of Athens dis- 
cerns an altar inscribed " To the Unknown 
God." Instantly, by making it a pulpit, he 
compels the brain of the world to listen for 
a season to the gospel. 

III. Intensity of purpose, combined with 
alertness in detecting and employing oppor- 
tunities, alw r ays gives a certain quality of 
character for which I cannot readily find 
a name, but which you may find exhibited 
by the next dog you see lapping from the 
gutter. 

Even when the hound appears to hear 
nothing, to see nothing, he does not drink 
continuously. At intervals he pauses as 
if a thought, which he must consider, had 
struck him. He seems to be reflecting. An 
instant passes and he resumes his drinking. 

There is this much of inspiration in all 
men. Our best thoughts, our most fertile 
suggestions, often come to us in moments 



96 THE WORLD TO COME. 

when the mental powers are relaxed. If 
the mind is so trained that one's thoughts 
flow spontaneously in the channels cut for 
them by the main purpose of his life, his 
usefulest plans will be suggested to him at 
moments when he is not seeking them. 
Newton was strolling for rest when he ob- 
served the apple fall. James Watt was 
warming himself by the kitchen fire when 
he saw the steamboat in his mother's tea- 
kettle. Daniel Webster was on a pleasure 
trip, enjoying the prospect from the Heights 
of Abraham, and listening to the evening 
drum-beat of the British garrison at Que- 
bec, when first occurred to him that magni- 
ficent description of English dominion as 
the empire on which the sun never sets, 
though years elapsed before the Senate was 
electrified by its utterance. 

Here lies the arch peril of amusements. 
If a man allows himself to become so much 
absorbed in them, innocent though they may 
be, that in moments of relaxation his thoughts 
will gravitate towards them, he will rarely 
excel. If music is one's business, it is well 
when the grating of files sets him thinking 
how they may be tuned. But if the average 
man allows himself to become so interested 



GIDEON'S MEN, 97 

in cards, or billiards, or operas, or horses, 
that when he is not compelled to think of 
his proper business he instinctively thinks 
of them, he will never give the world prime 
work. 

IV. The most conspicuous distinction be- 
tween the dog and the ox at water is this : 
the ox never heeds his master until his 
thirst is quenched ; the dog never heeds 
his thirst till his master is obeyed. I have 
seen a hound panting with heat, his black 
lips baked, his tongue cracked, dart toward 
the cool spring. But his master's whistle 
arrests him at the brink, and he darts back 
without a drop. I have watched drovers 
call, pound, goad oxen at the ford, but the 
beasts would not budge until their thirst 
was slaked. Both types you may have seen 
among recruits enlisted in the army of the 
Lord. 

If we should trace, step by step, the con- 
flict in which the Midianites were defeated, 
we would see that the victory was won solely 
by the exercise on the part of Gideon's men 
of those qualities displayed in their drink- 
ing. 

1. Oxen are bigger and stronger than 
dogs. The Midianites were many, the Is- 



98 THE WORLD TO COME. 

raelites were few. But a single purpose ab- 
sorbed each of the three hundred. It was 
to reach a certain spot undiscovered. 

2. To do that required them to keep their 
faculties almost preternaturally alert. They 
stole upon the foe, wary, watchful, every 
sense awake. It is dark. The crackling of 
a dry twig beneath a careless tread may give 
the alarm. It is night, and without hawks' 
eyes no man can be sure of his way. 

3. But if the three hundred reach their 
goal, that will be futile unless they keep the 
lights burning within their pitchers. Each 
must watch his torch. He must guard it as 
one guards his secret thoughts. Ever and 
anon, as a dog who pauses from time to time 
we know not why, he must get sight of his 
candle without allowing a ray to escape in 
front. 

4. Most important of all conditions of suc- 
cess, he must observe every sound and sign 
made by his leader, and be ready for instant 
obedience. A moment's delay in breaking 
the pitchers, blowing the trumpets, shouting 
the battle-cry when the signal had been 
given, would have converted the most bril- 
liant victory of Hebrew annals into a piti- 
able fiasco. 



GIDEON'S MEN 99 

If you will read with these suggestions 
the seventh chapter of Judges, it may grow 
plain why Cromwell's Ironsides, who never 
were defeated, with instinctive perception of 
its significance, selected for their battle-cry, 
the cry which heralded victory at Naseby 
and Marston Moor, " The sword of the Lord 
and of Gideon." It may also become ap- 
parent what qualities of character are re- 
quisite in us who would win in that more 
strenuous and important spiritual warfare 
we wage for Jesus Christ. " For we wres- 
tle not with flesh and blood, but with prin- 
cipalities and powers." 



VIII. 

SELF-PITY: SAUL IN THE WITCH'S CAVE. 

And Saul answered, I am sore distressed ; for the Phi- 
listines make war against me, and God is departed from 
me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor 
by dreams ; therefore I have called thee, that thou may- 
est make known unto me what I shall do. — 1 Sam. 
xxviii. 15. (R. V.) 

I BO not know whether I have been more 
thrilled by the horror, touched by the pa- 
thos, or numbed by the despair, in these 
words. They appear to be true. They were 
utterly false. 

The horror of them is this : they express 
a man's deliberate conviction that God, in 
whom he lives and moves and has his being, 
has cast him off, and left him to struggle 
alone against forces which sweep him as Ni- 
agara sweeps a skiff. 

The pathos of them is twofold. They are 
Saul's only complaint. They are the single 
shriek of one who believes himself a lost 
spirit pushed into the abyss. But they also 



SELF-PITY. 101 

express the awful loneliness of a human 
being famishing for sympathy. Because he 
thinks he cannot have God 5 Saul turns to 
Samuel. So I have seen a woman who had 
outlived her associates, or driven them away 
by persistent selfishness, turn to a poodle 
and try to make it fill the place of a friend ! 
So I have heard men in stress of trouble 
entreat me to pray for them, without a 
thought of praying for themselves, because, 
while God was drawing them to his ear by 
their afflictions, they fancied God had de- 
parted from them. 

The hopelessness of Saul's condition was 
that he mistook his own doings for God's, 
and, while the world was green and only his 
own glasses gray, fancied the world was 
gray and his glasses clear. 

The apparent truth of Saul's words comes 
from the fact that he was alienated from 
God. Their essential falsehood is in their 
saying that God had deserted him, when in 
fact he had deserted God. 

I. Recall the scene, — a valley three miles 
wide, running from northeast to southwest. 
Northward it swells upward into the hill 
Moreh. Its south side is Mount Gilboa. 
At the base of Gilboa flows the spring of 



102 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Jezreel, a stream fifty yards wide. Upon 
the plain, north and west of Gilboa, the 
Philistines are encamped. South of the 
stream, upon the north slope of Gilboa, are 
Saul and his army. There is no reason for 
supposing that his forces were outnumbered 
by the enemy. That enemy was the Phi- 
listines, and the Philistines he had defeated 
many times. His position was impregnable. 
He could choose his own time for attack, or 
decline battle altogether, for his base of sup- 
plies was immediately behind him, while the 
enemy were cut off from theirs and must fight 
or retreat. The strength of the Philistine 
army was in their iron chariots. These could 
only be employed upon the plain. They 
could not charge through the dense woods or 
up the steep slopes of Gilboa, upon the crest 
of which Saul's troops were safe as an eagle 
in its eyry. He was encamped on the spot 
whence Gideon descended upon the Midi- 
anites, and won the most brilliant battle re- 
corded in the history of Israel. Every in- 
dication promised an easy and decisive vic- 
tary, if only Saul could be Saul. But that 
he cannot be. Once he would have minded 
those Philistines as a lion minds jackals. 
But his courage is gone. He cannot hope, 



SELF-PITY. 103 

because lie cannot pray. He feels that God 
has departed from him. Where clear eyes 
would have seen signs of promise, he dis- 
cerns only signals of despair. What shall 
he do? 

II. Seven miles as the bee flies north of 
his camp, directly in the rear of the Philis- 
tine army, lies Endor. At Endor lives a 
woman who claims that she can raise the 
dead. Perhaps she can. If so, it is by help 
of the infernal powers. If not, she is a fraud. 
In either case she is a wizard, and Saul him- 
self has commanded that every wizard in 
the land be put to death. To this woman, 
whether fraud or fiend he may not know, 
but believing her to be the latter, Saul re- 
solved to direct those prayers which he 
dares not address to God. Often you may 
see men, who count it folly to pray to the 
Almighty Love, turn with agony of suppli- 
cation to fellow-mortals weaker or wickeder 
than themselves ! 

Disguising himself, in order both to elude 
the Philistine outposts and to deceive the 
woman by whom he will be deceived, he 
makes a wide detour around the hostile 
army, and next appears in the witch's 
cave. 



104 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

It is night. Darkness and misery are 
friends to each other, but fiends to a guilty 
soul. Every step of the dark and dismal 
journey has taken something from Saul's 
manhood. Every step has quenched some 
ray of the light that still glimmers in his 
spirit, the light that lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world. He is moving from 
his friends. Every foot he advances brings 
more of his foes between his defenceless 
body and its natural protectors. He is go- 
ing from his God. Every foot he advances 
brings more of tormenting memories between 
his soul and his heavenly Father. Inch by 
inch, he is going from the light toward the 
outer darkness. This he knows. Still he 
moves on. Have you never seen men walk- 
ing from Gilboa to Endor ? 

III. At last the fearful journey ends. 
"Whether correctly or not I do not know, and 
it does not in the least matter, for the Bible 
does not tell us, Saul believes himself in the 
presence of the spirit of the dead. Under 
the pressure of that tremendous conviction 
the inmost workings of his spirit appear. 
His secret thoughts break from him. Hith- 
erto he has kept silence. But now the vol- 
canic fires burst through the granite of his 



SELF-PITY. 105 

pride. The living who might have helped 
him have sought his confidence in vain. 
But into the ear of an impotent shade, a 
dead man powerless to help or hurt, he 
pours his despair like a lava flood. 

" Why hast thou disquieted me to bring 
me up ? " The question may have been the 
ventriloquism of a charlatan bribed by the 
Philistines to practise upon Saul's supersti- 
tion, and meant to check further inquiry. 
It may have been some sign from the unseen 
world. Again I repeat, I do not know and 
it does not matter. But Saul believed that 
Samuel spoke, and the misery of it is, he 
believed that Samuel could love him when 
God had ceased to care for him ; he believed 
there could be rain upon the grass when 
there was no water in the sea. Therefore 
his reply : " I am sore distressed ; for the 
Philistines make war upon me, and God is 
departed from me and answereth me no 
more, neither by prophets nor by dreams. 
Therefore I have called thee up, that thou 
mayest make known to me what I ought to 
do." 

This, then, is what Saul has been think- 
ing. These are the thoughts which have 
driven him, as they will drive any man who 



106 THE WORLD TO COME, 

cherishes them, to the chamber of death, 
the wizard's cave, the ante-room of hell. 

And what were the facts that corresponded 
to Saul's fancies ? Statement by statement, 
word for word, accurately and absolutely, the 
reverse of what Saul imagines them to be, 
says that they are. 

" I am sore distressed." The words mean, 
" I am pressed upon from without " by un- 
toward events, as a weight presses upon a 
body and crushes it. 

The fact was the opposite, as we have seen. 
Saul was sore rent from within. Conscious 
of his pain, he attributes its origin not in 
the least to the real cause, which was him- 
self, but to something outside his own soul 
which he had not caused and could not cure, 
and for which he was not responsible. He 
is shaking with ague and thinks that it is 
winter, though the air is warm upon his 
cheeks. 

" For the Philistines make war upon me." 
It was he who had inaugurated war upon 
the Philistines, and incurred their desperate 
and implacable hostility by compelling Da- 
vid to a deed of wanton and disgusting cru- 
elty upon them. Not only that. Even now 
the Philistines would not have dared to rise 



SELF-PITY. 107 

in arms against him but for this. David 
had been Saul's most brilliant soldier and 
his ablest captain. By him again and again 
the Philistines had been routed. While 
David fought for Israel, the Philistines had 
not ventured to begin even movements for 
self-defence. But Saul in his frantic jeal- 
ousy had banished David, and thus given 
the Philistines hope and courage to attack 
him. 

" And God has departed from me." Had 
God moved ? Saul had moved, from the 
shrine at Shiloh, where God showed him- 
self in light, to the darkness of a witch's 
cave. While the Father's arms are stretched 
out all the day long, saying, " Why wilt thou 
die ? " the child runs from Him lamenting, 
" My Father has cast me off ! " 

" And answereth me no more." There, 
were three ways in which Saul knew that 
God communed with him and answered his 
requests, — by dreams or visions, by proph- 
ets, by Urim. 

1. By dreams. The narrative relates how 
in Saul's younger days music had exerted 
a mysterious power upon him, and brought 
him into a state of spiritual exaltation in 
which inspired visions came to him. We 



103 THE WORLD TO COME. 

are also told that lie had driven away from 
his presence, by attempting to murder him. 
the only man whose harp had power to exert 
that mysterious influence upon him. Thus 
he had closed, and still held closed, one of 
the three doors by which it was possible for 
God to answer him. 

2. By prophets. Saul had driven from 
his presence Samuel, the greatest of the 
prophets, by persistent disobedience, and had 
withdrawn from the lesser prophets who 
remained. Thus he had himself closed the 
second door of divine communication. 

3. There was a third method in which 
God had been accustomed to make known 
his will. It was communion by Uriin. 
What this was we do not know. It was in 
some way connected with the gleam of a 
precious stone, probably a diamond, worn by 
the high priest, and the mysterious com- 
munication could come only through the 
priest acting as mediator. But Saul, in a 
frenzy of wrath against David, had slaugh- 
tered all the members of the priestly house 
save one. and that one was in exile, still 
under sentence of death. 

Thus Saul had locked the three doors, 
the onlv three of which he knew, bv which 



SELF-PITY. 109 

God could answer him, and held the keys 
of them in his hand at the moment when he 
cried in despair, " God answereth me no 
more." Was Saul, in this insanity of self- 
delusion, wholly unlike us ? 

IV. There is one other point in Saul's 
exclamation which I would have you observe. 

What an energy of anguish throbs in the 
two words " no more " ! — " God answers me 
no more." Saul appreciates the awfulness of 
the change which has occurred in his rela- 
tions toward God, though he is so wildly 
oblivious of the cause. He sees the great 
gulf fixed between himself in torment and 
the water for one drop of which he pleads, 
though he does not see by whom the gulf 
has been fixed. He burns in the flames he 
has kindled, though he thinks God has kin- 
dled them to consume him. He pleads with 
Abraham for one drop of water, without a 
suspicion that God's bosom, an ocean, is 
there for him to lie upon. He has gone the 
way of those who love not the truth, upon 
whom has been sent " a strong delusion that 
they should believe a lie." 

" No more." It was not always so. Once 
he could turn to God with hope and joy. 
Once peace brooded over him. The light 



110 THE WORLD TO COME. 

in the past makes the darkness of the pres- 
ent more appalling, as a sailor drowning in 
the night sees afar the candle shining in the 
cottage of the mother he has forsaken. It 
is the sight of a little child kneeling by the 
white crib and falling asleep as he prays — 
asleep in trust and peace — that compels a 
wicked man to realize his loneliness, even if 
it does not force him to appreciate his guilt. 
Once he was a little child ! Once he could 
pray and sleep like that. But now ! If he 
seeks help from the invisible powers, and 
there are times when all men do that, he can 
turn only to the wizards that peep and mut- 
ter, and pretend they can change the laws 
of the Almighty. 

It is plain, I think, why there could be no 
hope for Saul, no deliverance from misery 
for him, while he remained in such a spirit. 
You or I, beholding agony like his, though 
in our bitterest foe, would have whispered 
words of hope. But God is kinder than we. 
There was no hope until Saul himself should 
change. Only the truth can make men free. 
Therefore the truth was spoken to him. He 
was reminded of the past, reminded that 
only those things had come upon him which 
he had been assured would come if he went 



SELF-PITT. HI 

the way he had gone. He was reminded of 
Moses and the prophets, and warned to hear 
them, and told that he had but a night to 
listen. No gleam of hope from any out- 
ward change was given him. " To-morrow 
thou and thy sons shall be with me." 

However these words were spoken, wheth- 
er by fraud or by miracle, God permitted 
them. How they affected Saul we are not 
told. After this single outburst of despair 
the monarch resumed the majesty of silence. 
He wrapped his curse about him and went 
forth into the night. The next day he 
fought bravely, he died not ignobly, and 
when men begin to do well I infer that it 
has begun to go well with them. But this 
I know : every pang Saul felt, every loss 
he endured, every star that was extinguished 
in his sky, marked a fresh effort of God to 
open his blind eyes and his deaf ears, that 
he might see and hear and perceive who had 
kindled and kept aflame the fires that con- 
sumed him, till he should turn to Him who 
was saying then and is saying still, " Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy- 
laden, and I will give you rest." 



IX. 

SAMSON : SELF-DECEPTION. 

And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily 
with her words, and urged him. so that his soul was 
vexed unto death, that he told her all his heart, and 
said unto her, There hath not eome a razor upon mine 
head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my 
mother's womb : if I be shaven, then my strength will 
go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any 
other man. — Judges xri. 16, 17. 

Samson is perhaps the most fascinating 
character described in the Old Testament. 
His biography exhilarates the reader. "We 
admire his courage, exult in his strength, are 
charmed by his good-nature. Dean Stanley, 
guided by the fine exegetical insight of Pro- 
fessor Ewald, has taught us to recognize in 
this champion of Dan " the solitary humor- 
ist " of sacred history, and to believe that 
though " he was capable of every crime but 
cowardice," he was also " capable of every 
virtue but humility." It is easy to palli- 
ate the vices and exaggerate the excellences 
of a character so captivating. Men pardon 



SAMSON: SELF-DECEPTION-. 113 

excesses in a good-natured man who makes 
them laugh. When they see one who never 
backbites, nor envies, nor hesitates to squan- 
der his money ; who is kind to his friends and 
fearless of his foes ; going the broad way 
which obviously leads to ruin, they are wont 
to say, " He is a noble fellow ; " " He is his 
own worst enemy." /They forget that the 
same is true of those who do not pass for 
"noble fellows;'' that lago, no less than 
Othello, was " his own worst enemy." 

We are drawn to Samson because he al- 
ways appears with a smile upon his face. 
We can hear his boisterous laughter as he 
stands upon the hill that overlooks the Phil- 
istine plain, and watches the frightened 
jackals scampering through the fields of 
ripe grain, scattering fire as they run. We 
can detect the sly smile of smothered mirth, 
as with lamb-like meekness he permits him- 
self to be bound and delivered to his foes. 
We wait without anxiety, with curiosity 
alone, until he breaks his bonds, as one 
breaks tow that fire has scorched, and smites 
his captors hip and thigh, shouting out the 
would-be pun, " With the jaw of an ass I 
have slain a mass." A poor pun it is, but a 
vent sufficing for his rollicking humor. He 



114 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

has all our sympathy when, rising at mid- 
night, he steps carefully over the sleeping 
Philistines' guards who are waiting to arrest 
him at dawn ; unhinges the leaves of the 
city gates, and lugs them on his burly shoul- 
ders, like a school-boy sweating to accomplish 
a practical joke, three miles, to the crest of 
the hill, where all in Gaza must see them in 
the morning. When he bends between the 
pillars of Dagon's temple, his irrepressible 
humor breaks forth in a last grim jest, 
even in prayer : " Give me strength just 
this once to be avenged for one of my two 
eyes." For 

"when he died his parting groan 

Had more of laughter than of moan." 

For more than twenty years this jovial, 
mighty man of valor " judged Israel." Dur- 
ing the whole of that period he w r as never 
conquered until he told his secret. To see 
him then, bound in fetters of brass, in the 
prison-house of his repulsive foes, — 

" Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill, with slaves ! " — 
the sunny Samson blind ; the champion of 
Israel at Gaza ; the resistless warrior in 
prison ; the strongest of men doing woman's 
work ; the breaker of fetters wearing them ; 



SAMSON: SELF-DECEPTION. 115 

all on account of a moment's amiable weak- 
ness; all because the great, strong, brave, 
generous heart could not resist a woman's 
crocodile tears — this seems too mournful. 
It seems monstrous, a thing that ought not 
to have been. 

Yet such is, I think, substantially the gen- 
eral estimate of Samson and of his career. 
We weigh him in the same scales in which 
society weighs the noble young men whom 
every one loves, and who would be so use- 
ful to the world, with their rare gifts, such 
ornaments to the community, if only they 
would not get drunk, nor gamble, nor break 
the hearts of their wives and mothers ; if 
only they had not been overcome by temp- 
tation in moments of weakness, stolen the 
funds of the men who trusted them, and 
squandered the hardly earned savings of 
other people in buying fine horses and build- 
ing palaces for themselves. 

I think we are wise in going to this epi- 
sode with Delilah for the explanation of 
Samson's ruin. But I doubt whether the 
current reading of that episode is exhaus- 
tive, and therefore I would have you read it 
once more. 

1. And first I would have you observe 



116 THE WORLD TO COME. 

that the scene described in the text occurred, 
not at the beginning, but at the close, of 
Samson's career. For nearly twenty years 
he had been at his work. Yet by his 
strength and his courage, by his battles, his 
jokes, and his various activities, he had 
accomplished literally less than nothing of 
the task he had been appointed to perform, 
the task to which he had deliberately dedi- 
cated his life. That task, assigned to him 
by God, revealed through an angel, accepted 
first by his parents and then by himself, was 
the liberation of his country from Philistine 
oppression. Twenty years have passed since 
Samson, endowed with superhuman powers, 
began his judgeship. Still his people are 
not free. At his death the Philistines will 
be stronger than they were at his birth, and 
their chains more firmly riveted upon Israel. 
Near the close of the twenty years Samson 
himself is lying supine upon the breast of the 
ablest, the most patriotic, and the most fas- 
cinating of Philistine women. Surely some- 
thing must be wrong ; something for which 
Delilah alone is not responsible ; something 
which cannot be explained by the theory of 
a moment's amiable weakness in Samson 
himself. 



SAMSON: SELF-DECEPTION. 117 

2. Observe, when Samson yielded to an 
irrational impulse and revealed his secret, 
he only did once more what he had been 
doing all his life. 

There are two types of men. The first 
are controlled by principle, the second by 
impulse. The first live the life of God. 
The second live the life of beasts. 

A cat scratches when she feels like scratch- 
ing, and purrs when she feels like purring. 
When she scratches, we smite her; when she 
purrs, we pet her. A snake hisses, a dove 
coos. We kill snakes, we cherish doves. 
But a man who does well only u when he 
feels like it" is in training to do ill "when 
he feels like" doing that. While he lives 
the life of the dove, he is equally living 
the life of the cat, of the snake. Samson 
was such a man. There is not an act re- 
corded of him which he did not perform 
simply because he "felt like doing it." He 
had been intrusted with an important mis- 
sion. He had been furnished with abilities 
adequate to its demands. He was allowed 
twenty years to complete his work. Instead 
of setting himself to do it, like a man, be- 
cause it was given him to do, he worked only 
when the impulse seized him, — when it was 



118 THE WORLD TO COME. 

therefore easier for him to work than to 
play. Thus even the right things he did — 
if such can be found recorded, of which I am 
not sure — trained him steadily to be more 
and more the slave of his impulses ; and when 
at last the impulse to do obviously wrong 
came upon him, he obeyed it precisely as an 
untrained cat scratches, and an untrained 
horse kicks. 

The essential blasphemy against God in 
whose image we are made, the crime against 
nature for us who have been created men and 
not brutes, has been committed by the man 
who says, " 1 will do as I like ; " "I will do 
this just because I feel like doing it ; " " I 
will leave that undone just because I do not 
feel like doing it." 

That fact explains why the magnificent 
Samson was at last compelled to grind meal 
in the mills of his enemies, though the sor- 
did and servile Jacob came in due time to 
be the prince of Israel. 

3. The life of impidse in men always tends 
to become the life of self-deception. 

The text shows us how profound was the 
deception which Samson practised upon him- 
self. 

Intentional deceit is the vice of the weak. 



SAMSON: SELF-DECEPTION. 119 

Foxes and little children and slaves, who 
have no other weapons of defence, take in- 
stinctively to lying. But there are curves 
so large that they seem flat. The world is 
round, yet to us who live upon it the world 
seems a plain. Such was Samson's curve 
from the straight line of truth. 

In my childhood I was suffered to believe 
that so long as the Danite hero persisted in 
telling lies to Delilah he was safe, while the 
instant he whispered the truth he was lost. 
An unwholesome moral that, especially for 
children, even if it were taught in the Bi- 
ble. But it is not taught in the Bible ; least 
of all is it taught here. 

Samson said, " If they bind me with green 
withes I shall be as another man." That 
every child perceives to be a lie. " If they 
bind me with new ropes." That, too, is 
obviously a falsehood. " If my locks are 
weaved together." That was no less evi- 
dently a deception. But what every child 
who reads this narrative should be made to 
understand is this : when Samson told Deli- 
lah " all that was in his heart," that is, when 
he uttered to her his profoundest conviction, 
and said, " I have been a Nazarite from my 
youth," he spoke perhaps the largest lie that 



120 THE WORLD TO COME. 

exists in recorded literature, though lie had 
so warped his conscience that he believed it 
to be a truth. The penalty of persistent* 
lying is loss of ability to discern the truth. 

Samson knew perfectly well what a JNaz- 
arite was. An angel had explained the 
meaning of the word to his parents before 
he was born. It was clearly defined in the 
laws of Moses. His father and mother re- 
minded him of its significance when, in his 
first recorded action, he refused to heed its 
meaning. 

A Nazarite was one set apart by God for 
a peculiar mission, who accepted the mission 
and renounced the world, with all its pleas- 
ures, in order to devote his energies, undis- 
tracted by the common allurements or cares 
of life, to the vocation to which he had been 
called. As a sign that he accepted his ap- 
pointed work, the Nazarite was required to 
abstain from wine, and to wear his hair un- 
cut ; indications that he had no leisure to 
enjoy the ordinary gratifications or conform 
to the current customs of society. These 
outward signs, the long hair and the absti- 
nence from wine, were merely door-plates 
announcing that a devoted and self-denying 
spirit dwelt within. Samuel was a Nazarite. 



SAMSON: SELF-DECEPTION. 121 

John the Baptist was a Nazarite: But there 
was no need of mentioning their long hair to 
advertise the fact. Their lives evinced it. 
But Samson was the worldliest of the world- 
ly. Year after year he lived the most ob- 
vious falsehood, a falsehood proclaimed by 
his unshorn locks to every eye that beheld 
him. His long hair said : " This is a man who 
sacrifices himself, yields every personal de- 
sire, every personal interest, every pleasure 
this world can give, every hope and every 
fear, to a divinely given mission." Yet not 
one deed is recorded of this long-haired man 
which was not done to gratify some personal 
passion, some personal vanity, or some per- 
sonal impulse. Torquemada in the Spanish 
inquisition is certainly a repulsive object in 
our eyes, and Samson, even in his wild ex- 
cesses of good humor, seems attractive to us. 
But Torquemada, kindling fires to burn those 
he hates, and calling himself a disciple of 
Jesus because he wears a red cross embroi- 
dered upon his black robe, was not a more 
colossal fraud than Samson devoting his life 
to the gratification of his whims, his vanity, 
and his lusts, while he called himself a Naz- 
arite because he wore long hair. It was 
time his hair should be cut, time that he who 
had so thoroughly deceived himself, should 



122 THE WORLD TO COME. 

at last be taught the truth. Be sure it was 
not his veracity, but his living and speaking 
a lie, which caused his ruin. 

4. This sunny Samson, whom we have all 
admired so much; from whose sorrows we 
cannot withhold our sympathy ; in whom 
Milton saw the tragedy of his own heroic 
life foreshadowed, and Handel recognized a 
prototype ; with whom Ewald has taught us 
to laugh and Stanley to rejoice, appears to 
have been but a sham hero after all. Essen- 
tially, beneath the splendid clothes he wore, 
he seems to have been an altogether selfish 
and paltry creature. What act of his has 
been recorded which he did not do for his 
own sake ? 

He fell in love with a Philistine woman. 
Thwarted in his love, he attacked and slew 
the men who had thwarted him. That was 
his first obedience to the Nazarite vow which 
bound him to devote his life, without shar- 
ing the common passions of mankind, solely 
to the emancipation of his country. 

Provoked by a personal injury, he declared, 
" I will be avenged," and set fire to the corn- 
fields of those with whom he was angry. 
That was his second act of obedience to the 
Nazarite vow. Besieged in Gaza by men 
who sought his life, he arose at midnight, 



SAMSON: SELF-DECEPTION, 123 

and wasted his great strength lugging the 
city gates to place them where they would 
advertise his prowess. This prank, which 
exasperated without weakening the foes of 
his country, was the third act of obedience 
to his Nazarite vow. 

When bound hand and foot, and sur- 
rounded by his own vindictive enemies, he 
broke the ropes that bound him, and slew a 
thousand men to save his own life. Of all 
these amazing efforts not one was inspired 
by patriotism or the memory of his vow ; 
and when at last the inevitable end of such 
a career had come, his dying prayer, as he 
bent between the pillars, was not for his 
country, but for himself : " O Lord, that I 
may be avenged upon the Philistines." ■ 

Is it not plain why Samson's life was 
futile? 

Why, then, is it that the career of Samson 
fascinates us, and why do we find it difficult 
to blame him ? If he was the slave of his 
passions, a false man, a wholly selfish, trivial 
man, why do we not despise him ? 

I will answer that question by asking an- 
other. Why do men admire Byron, Aaron 
Burr, and Napoleon ? And why is it woe to 
the disciples of Christ when all men speak 
well of them ? 



X. 

TO PARENTS. 

Train tip a child in the way he should go, and when 
he is old he will not depart from it. — Pkoy. xxii. G. 

The text may have originated with Solo- 
mon. If so, it contains the judgment of the 
most observant and sagacious of men. More 
probably it was a proverb in Israel, and 
therefore expresses the general judgment of 
the race which has trained its children more 
admirably than any other which has yet ap- 
peared on earth. 

When Waltham would make watches it 
went to Geneva for instruction. For the 
same reason wise parents turn to the Bible 
for guidance in family discipline. 

I. The example of Solomon warns us to 
remember that those who do not govern 
themselves, cannot govern their children. 
In this respect the celebrated epigram upon 
Charles II., 

' ' Who never said a foolish thing", 
And never did a wise one," 

may be applied to the wise king of Israel. 



TO PARENTS. 125 

We do not know that any of Solomon's 
sons turned out well, and yet the most judi- 
cious maxims for parents that can be found 
have come to us through him. 

The background of the text, therefore, 
warns us that the first essential in the gov- 
ernment of our children is the government 
of ourselves. Rehoboam did not obey his 
father's precepts; he imitated his father's 
example. 

A large part of parental discipline must 
consist in rewards and punishments. God's 
government is full of them. Every act of 
obedience to his law is rewarded ; every act 
of disobedience is punished. But the di- 
vine punishments are administered without 
a tinge of passion. If one lies he will suf- 
fer. If one gets drunk his head will ache. 
These penalties are inexorable. But the 
drunkard feels that he suffers not because 
God is angry with him, but because he has 
dashed himself against a law. 

When parents punish children, it is of- 
ten only bad temper at work. The boy has 
been forbidden to throw stones. He throws 
twenty, and nothing is done. The twenty- 
first breaks a window-pane, and he is dis- 
ciplined with perhaps undue enthusiasm. 



126 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

He knows lie is made to suffer, not because 
he has broken a law, but because he has 
broken a window. He thinks his father 
"outrageous" to care so much for a bit of 
glass, and his opinion is indisputably correct. 

A child by his fretful ways makes the 
house a purgatory until his mother's patience 
is exhausted. Then she boxes his ears, and 
so makes him realize, not that she can gov- 
ern him, but that she cannot govern herself. 

A man burned down his house by trying 
to govern his stove before he had learned 
to govern himself. The weather was cold 
and the coal would not burn. He shook out 
the ashes. He grew hot and red. The 
lever slipped and bruised his fingers. It 
slipped again and bruised them worse. 
Then the grate stuck fast. He caught the 
lever with both hands, braced both feet, and 
jerked it viciously. Of course the stove was 
upset, the hot coals rolled upon the floor, 
and he shouted for assistance. The stove 
cared nothing for his temper. It obeyed 
its own laws. When the man lost his tem- 
per, he could not perceive those laws. But 
the safety of his house depended upon his 
obeying them. 

The laws which govern the human spirit 



TO PARENTS. 127 

are as inexorable, and "far more occult and 
complex, than those which govern stoves. 
A man in temper is always blind to them. 
He can better afford to burn up twenty 
houses than one home. Yet often have I 
been called to help put out the fire when 
the parent's temper had upset the child. 

There is a false principle, sometimes de- 
liberately adopted by parents, which works 
nearly as much disaster as bad temper itself ; 
which is in fact the cosey nest in which bad 
temper often hatches its eggs, secure from 
attacks of conscience. It is this : " I have 
but one law with my children. That is, 
absolute, instant obedience to my command. 
Even when I have given an order which it 
would have been wiser not to have given, 
I exact unquestioning obedience, for the 
parent's authority must be preserved ; and if 
a child once is allowed to question the wis- 
dom of my commands, the foundations of 
family government will be undermined." 

This is simply retaining in the household 
a legal fiction which has long been rejected 
from every civil government except perhaps 
in Russia and Turkey. It used to be said 
and believed, " The king can do no wrong." 
That fiction has cost many a sovereign both 



128 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

crown and head. It was blown into frag- 
ments, with memorable solemnities, by the 
French Revolution. The certain way to 
convince the people that their king can do 
no right, has been found to be, insisting that 
he can do no wrong. Parents who are not 
fools know that they are fallible. If they 
try to teach their children otherwise, they 
try to teach what they know is not true ; 
and, in this world, no good ever comes of 
lying. The instant a parent finds himself 
in the wrong, he should confess the fact to 
his child. That is the one sure way of estab- 
lishing and maintaining his authority. 

I knew a child of exceptionally quick and 
strenuous impulses. Though affectionate he 
was not obedient, and needed to "be watched 
as a weasel to be kept from mischief. His 
father told him to pick up a pin. The 
father thought the boy refused, but the 
father was mistaken. A sharp rebuke. The 
boy began to sulk (I had far rather hear a 
child swear than see him sulk). " Come here, 
sir!" The child did not stir. The father 
lost his temper. He seized his boy tempes- 
tuously ; carried him into another room for 
punishment. The moment's delay brought 
the man to himself. He sat for a little while 



TO PARENTS. 129 

with his child in his arms. Then said : "My 
son, we have done wrong. I have lost my 
temper and you have lost yours. It is worse 
for me to do that than it is for you, because 
I am bigger and stronger and ought to be 
wiser than you. I ask God to forgive me and 
I ask you. I must be right before I can 
help you to be right. Help me to be a good 
father, so that I can help you to be a good 
son." The sullen defiance left the child's 
face. His arms clasped his father's neck. 
" Father, I did n't say what you thought I 
did ! " The child was six years old. He is 
now sixteen. The father is a quick-tem- 
pered man. But I have heard him say 
repeatedly that, for ten years, he has never 
had occasion to rebuke his boy, by word or 
gesture, for the slightest approach to disobe- 
dience. The man of fifty and the boy of 
sixteen appear to live and have their being 
in each other as a single soul. 

It is sometimes urged : " But the child's 
will must be broken. Unless that is done 
he will surely come to grief.'' 

Break a child's will ! You had better 
break his back. The parent's chief business 
is to strengthen his child's will. Will power 
means success both in this life and in the 



130 THE WORLD TO COME. 

life which is to come. Men become drunk- 
ards because they lack will power. They 
fail in their vocations ; they sink into idle- 
ness and pauperism and all manner of ruin- 
ous self-indulgences, because their wills are 
weak. They do not become Christians, or 
they continue paltry, useless Christians, be- 
cause they have so little will power. 

A kitten is born blind and weak of limb. 
Nature prepares it to be a good cat not by 
breaking its weak little claws, but by open- 
ing its blind little eyes. The parents' busi- 
ness is not to make children do what is right, 
which for a time is easy and then impossible, 
but to make them will what is right, which 
at first is difficult, but if achieved becomes 
instinctive. 

Johnnie has disobeyed. You said he 
should not play with the carving knife, and 
there it is in his hand. It is there because 
his will is weak, not as you fancy because 
his will is strong. When you told him not 
to do it, there was in him a little bit of res- 
olution to obey you, because he loves you. 
But the resolution was not strong enough 
to resist ^temptation. Your business is to 
strengthen his weak will until it becomes 
stronger than anything that can attack it. 



TO PARENTS. 131 

There are a hundred different ways of doing 
this, and the study of your life should be to 
find them. You may conquer the child a 
thousand times, and each time you have in- 
jured him unless you have helped him to 
conquer himself. Every child, even when 
in a fury, is a little Paul. He feels, though 
he cannot say, " Wretched child that I am. 
That which I would not I do, and that 
which I would I do not. Who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death." You, the 
parent, are set by God to deliver him by 
strengthening his will. 

II. How to do this the text can teach us. 

1. By training the child " in the way he 
should go." 

Avoid training him in the way he ought 
not to go. The babe lies quietly in his 
little crib. His soft eyes wander over the 
room. He is studying hard. He begins to 
smile and coo. He is obeying the sweetest 
impulses that can sway the human spirit. 
Wise mothers select this moment to whisper 
in his ears murmurs of approval and endear- 
ment. They let other matters wait while 
they smile upon their darling. Foolish 
mothers let him lie without a word. They 
are too busy to notice, and are only thankful 



132 THE WORLD TO COME. 

that the child is quiet. But when he grows 
weary and begins to kick and scream, they 
hasten to caress him, and call him "mother's 
precious darling." So in politics and in 
churches it not infrequently occurs, that a 
man may continue until he dies doing all 
things, bearing all things, sacrificing all 
things for the general good, sweet spirited 
as Stephen, while none praise, none observe, 
except to use him for their own selfish ends. 
But the instant he grows fractious and hate- 
ful enough, all begin to pet and truckle to 
him for fear of what he may do next. They 
even put him in office, not because he is 
fit for the place, but to keep him in good 
temper. 

Babies are by no means fools. When 
they get petted for kicking and neglected for 
smiling they draw influential inferences. 

It should be remembered that when, at 
the beginning of his career, a healthy child 
screams or frets, it is always pins or colic. 
If it is pins, remove them. If colic, send 
for the physician. If it is because you have 
trained him to disturb the household by his 
temper, you must undo your work. 

The wisest and tenderest mother I ever 
knew, a mother loved so dearly that when 



TO PARENTS. 133 

she had been a year in heaven her youngest 
child, only eight years old, was heard say- 
ing : " We must take care to remember what 
mother said, because if we make her sorry 
now she cannot tell us ! " made it an inflex- 
ible rule that her children should never 
have anything for which they cried. Before 
most parents would have supposed them old 
enough to understand her meaning, she care- 
fully explained to them that in this world no 
one ever gets anything by whining for it ; at 
least no one ought to, and they certainly 
would not. Her teaching was effective. 

Again, when a child trips or stumbles 
and hurts himself, have you never heard, 
" Naughty chair to trip baby ! Mamma whip 
chair." It is easy in that fashion to dry up 
tears ! But it is drying them by kindling the 
fires of hell. It is planting seeds whose har- 
vests appear in the moody man who blames 
circumstances for the results of his own 
transgressions. Is it not as easy to rouse 
the sweet side of the child's nature by work- 
ing through his imagination ; to say, " Poor 
chair ! Baby hurt chair. Mamma kiss chair 
and make it well." That is to dry tears by 
the sun of heaven. 

A hundred illustrations are at hand. 



134 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Perhaps the commonest is this. A child 
snatches at table. " Why, my son ! Sup- 
pose company were here ! What would Mrs. 
B think if she saw you do that ! " 

So the principle of conduct which Christ 
vehemently denounced is instilled into the 
receptive spirit, and the little one is taught 
to " do all things to be seen of men." The 
child is forced to feel that the opinions of 
strangers are more important than the hap- 
piness of his parents and sisters. Thus ; for 
as those who know tell us that before a hu- 
man being is three years old it learns more 
than it ever acquires after that age, though 
it should live to be a hundred ; and as the 
child is father of the man ; a crop is sown 
of husbands who will be polite to every 
one's wife except their own ; of fathers and 
brothers who will suppress their tempers in 
society, and let them effervesce at home. 

2. We are told to train a child in the 
" way he should go." 

But many train them to stand still. It is 
a child's nature "to go," and go he will. 
Eight or wrong he will go ! 

A common mistake, and a fatal one, is 
made by those who endeavor to mould 
children by negatives. 



TO PARENTS. 135 

God begins their training by prompting 
them to incessant activity. They never rest 
save when they are sick or asleep. 

Parents are often satisfied with telling 
children what they must not do. Long ago 
Milton wrote that one ounce of right doing 
was worth many pounds of forcible preven- 
tion of wrong doing. I suppose most of us 
have reproved our little ones twenty times 
for doing what we did not want them to do, 
for once that we have praised them for 
doing as we wished to have them. Who 
watches and when the child has tried twenty 
times in vain to make his card house stand, 
cries out " Bravo ! " when at the twenty-first 
attempt his perseverance succeeds ? The 
way to prevent a child from doing wrong 
things is to encourage him in doing right 
ones. 

A parent should be a governor in the me- 
chanical meaning of that word. He should 
be a great fly-wheel. When the little wheels 
work too fast, it gathers up the superfluous 
energy. When they flag, it restores the 
hoarded force, and thus keeps them all mov- 
ing evenly, but moving. Most of us per- 
form the least important part of the duty. 
We check the disturbing energy, especially 



186 THE WORLD TO COME. 

when our heads ache, but we do not give it 
back to impel the children forward in good 
works. 

3. To train a child in the way he should 
go is often a different matter from training 
him in the way we wish he would go. 

There are certain not over wise maxims 
which have been over much believed. Such 
are these : that the child is blank paper, 
upon which the parent may write what he 
likes ; that as the twig is bent the tree is in- 
clined ; that the child is virgin soil, in which 
you may plant what seed you choose, sure 
that it will bear fruit after its kind. 

Parents who think so are like to reap fine 
crops from their virgin soil ! The child is a 
field in which ancestors have been planting 
seeds for thousands of years. That small 
bundle of impotence in your cradle is full of 
germs as a tropic jungle. Your business is 
to watch them, to cultivate the flowers and 
train the weeds, remembering that every 
weed has its uses. Tares and wheat will 
show their blades. ^Ve must recognize them 
when they appear. All the educational 
steam-pumps in the universe will never force 
into a child anything of which God has not 
put the germ within him. TTe can create 



TO PARENTS. 137 

nothing. We can only educate, that is, 
" draw out " into strength and beautiful 
growths what is already there. 

Watch, and wait, and pray. Nothing 
will come up which wise and patient culture 
cannot train to useful manhood; even the 
tares can be made to fertilize the wheat. 
That boy is sly, secretive, deceitful. But 
this badness is only the untrained fruit of 
caution. Watched with sufficient care, it 
may be made the useful helper of frankness 
and valor. 

4. To train a child in the way he should 
go is not to train him as other children 
should go. 

This is the reason why there appears so 
often one black sheep in the flock. Parents 
are sometimes spoiled by their success with 
one child, until reformed by their failure 
with another. They think they have only to 
cast each child into the same candle mould 
which shaped their first so well. 

But children are born to go different 
ways. The master in a menagerie trains 
each animal according to its nature. He 
does not try to make a falcon swim, or a fish 
fly, or an otter climb. But the distinctions 
between children are no less radical, and 



138 THE WORLD TO COME. 

far more subtle and difficult to discern. 
Parents should remember that because they 
have succeeded with one child they are in 
danger of failing with another. Teaching a 
chicken to scratch does not qualify for teach- 
ing a duck to swim, except in the general 
way that it trains the trainer to be patient, 
persistent, and watchful. In certain re- 
spects all animals are similar, and all chil- 
dren are alike. If you show temper to ani- 
mals, all will exhibit temper in return. But 
each in a different way. One will bite, an- 
other will scratch, another will kick, another 
will run away. If you are kind and just, 
all will respond and try to do your bidding, 
but each in its own fashion. 

To the lay eye these larvae look substan- 
tially alike. To it small differences in shade 
and size seem immaterial. But at a glance 
the naturalist declares, "That will be a 
white miller, give it grape leaves to eat; 
that will be a silk moth, give it mulberry ; 
and that will be a purple emperor, feed it 
upon oak." 

If men would observe their children, upon 
whose welfare their most precious hopes de- 
pend, with half the judicious care they have 
bestowed upon beasts and birds and fishes 
and insects, great would be their reward. 



XI. 

SAVING FAITH. 

To Children. 

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved. —Acts xvi. 31. 

This promise was made to a man in great 
trouble. The man learned to believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ and was saved from his 
trouble. 

The words are as true for us to-day as 
they were for that man eighteen hundred 
years ago. Our troubles may be great or 
small. They may come from having the 
measles ; from not getting what we want ; 
from losing our friends, or from having to 
do what we &on't like. Whatever they are, 
if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we 
shall be saved from them every one. 

Not very many days ago there was a little 
boy in such distress that he could not eat 
his breakfast. When he tried to, his head 
dropped upon his plate, and he sobbed as 



140 THE WORLD TO COME. 

if his heart would break. He had behaved 
badly in school. His teacher had sent a 
note to his father. He was mortified and 
miserable. His sobs- asked as plainly as 
words, " What shall I do to be saved? " 

Something within him said, " Teacher 
was mean as dirt to tell father! Pay her 
back. Be as hateful as you can without get- 
ting docked. Believe in me" 

His father answered, " Jesus says you 
have been mean. He tells us when we have 
injured any one to confess it, and ask their 
pardon. Believe in Him, my boy, and you 
will be saved." 

The little fellow went to school. 
"Teacher," he said, "I'm ashamed I acted 
so you had to tell father. I 'm sorry, and I 
will try to be a good boy." He said this 
aloud like a man. All the boys heard him. 
He expected they would laugh at him and 
call him a sneak. But they did n't. His 
misery and tears departed as the fog goes 
before the sun. It was the happiest morn- 
ing he ever spent in school. 

This boy believed in the Lord Jesus and 
was saved from his trouble. 

I. The Bible tells us that Jesus cannot 
save us unless we believe in Him. I wish 



SAVING FAITH, 141 

you would stop a moment and think that 
out. 

God gave you a mother. Without her 
care you would have died almost as soon as 
you were born. She fed you, dressed you, 
kept you warm, and saved you from a thou- 
sand perils of which you knew nothing, 
before you could do anything to help your- 
self. 

So God has given you a Saviour, Jesus 
Christ. You cannot know a thousandth part 
of what He has done for you and is doing 
for you all the time. 

But there are many things, and they are 
the worst things, from which a mother can- 
not save her child unless he believes in her. 

When Charlie began to creep his mother 
told him not to go near the fire or it would 
hurt him. But Charlie's eyes told him a 
different story. They said, " The flame is 
kind and beautiful ; go catch it. Perhaps 
you can make it sing like a bird." Charlie 
believed in his eyes, not in his mother, and 
the flame did not long seem lovely to him. 
Another time his mother caught her unbe- 
lieving boy before he reached the grate. 
He screamed and struggled to get away 
from her. He grew angry and hot. That 



142 THE WORLD TO COME. 

too was misery for him. She could save him 
from being burnt outside, but she could not 
keep the fire from burning him inside, be- 
cause he did not believe in her. 

So you see a mother cannot save her child 
from misery, even by holding him in her 
arms and kissing him, unless he believes in 
her. But when he trusts her more than he 
trusts himself, believes her eyes and thoughts 
rather than his own, the fire will not hurt, 
it will help him. He will get its warmth 
and beauty without its sting. For folks are 
like trees, the things they believe are their 
roots, and the things they do their fruits. 

Trusting Jesus' eyes and ears and thoughts 
more than our own St. Paul called " walk- 
ing by faith." And Jesus himself called it 
" Believing in Him." 

II. It is not easy to believe in Jesus. If 
it were the Bible would not spend so much 
time urging us to do it. For people do not 
need much urging to do easy things, but 
hard ones. 

Even the things we see with our eyes are 
often so different from what they seem, that 
it is hard to believe the truth about them. 
Our eyes say the sun moves and the earth 
stands still. When my father toJd me how 



SAVING FAITH. 143 

the earth rolled round I did not believe him, 
because I thought the chimneys would tum- 
ble off the houses and the water out of the 
wells every night if what he said were true. 
But when we come to things we cannot see 
it is harder still to believe the truth. We 
are like travellers in a strange country who 
know neither the way nor the language, and 
do not see things as they are, but call stones 
bread, and gall honey, and poison water. 
There is something inside us always saying 
black is white, and bitter is sweet. If we 
believe it we get into no end of trouble here, 
and if we keep on believing it we shall be in 
misery always in this world and the next, 
for everything — even the kindest things, 
health and wealth and Christmas and friends 
— will hurt us. 

But Jesus understands everything, and 
always tells us the truth about it. If we 
believe in Him all things, even the hateful- 
lest, sickness and poverty and enemies, will 
help us. Therefore the first business of a 
wise boy or man will be to learn what Jesus 
calls things, and believe that ; to learn what 
Jesus tells us, and do that. 

Many a boy thinks, " If I had a veloci- 
pede, a pony, and a sail -boat; if I could 



144 THE WORLD TO COME. 

have everything I want by wishing for it ; 
if I never had to do anything I don't like, I 
should be happy." 

Almost everybody in the world thinks the 
same. People do not often say it, but they 
act it, and Jesus tells us always to judge 
what a man believes by what he does and not 
by what he says. Most of the misery in the 
world comes from people's thinking they can 
be made happy by getting what they want 
and doing what they like. It is not true. 
Every one who tries finds out some time that 
it is false. Your father can tell you of men 
who have everything money can buy, who 
are able to do as they please, and yet are 
not half so happy as they used to be when 
they were children and had to live in a poor 
little house with scarcely enough to eat. 

Jesus says we can be happy only through 
loving God and our neighbors. If we do 
that we shall be glad, whether we are rich 
or poor, sick or well. Neither father nor 
mother can tell you of any one who has 
tried Jesus' way and found that He was mis- 
taken. 

III. Believing in Jesus is a habit. TTe 
cannot believe in Him once for all and have 
it over like being vaccinated. AYe must ac- 



SAVING FAITH. 145 

quire the habit little by little, day by day, 
just as we learn to walk or skate or believe 
in our mothers. We believed in them first 
of all because we loved them. But our 
faith grew stronger as we found that, when- 
ever we thought differently from them, 
they were always right and we were always 
wrong. 

But some one is ready to say : " I thought 
being saved always meant in the Bible going 
to heaven when we die ; and all your sermon 
is about this world ! " 

In thinking so you are partly right and 
partly wrong. That kind of believing which 
does not help us out of trouble and into hap- 
piness in this world will not help us into 
heaven when we die. But if you learn to 
believe in the Lord Jesus so that He saves 
you from misery in this world, something 
will happen to you even better than going 
to heaven when you die. You will find your- 
self in heaven before you die. That is what 
Jesus promised. A little girl looked up and 
longed for the beautiful blue sky. I told her 
she was in the sky already, only she did 
not know it. Every time she breathed she 
swallowed some of the sky. In it she lived 
and moved and had her being as truly as the 



146 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

birds. When she held her breath — as she 
did once in a passion — her ears hummed, 
her head ached, and she grew black in the 
face just because she would not let the sky- 
get into her, though it tried to all the time. 
So Jesus told a great many people they were 
in heaven, only they did not know it, and 
never would know it until they believed in 
Him. This He said to Nicodemus, a rich 
ruler ; to a poor ignorant woman in Sama- 
ria ; and to Mary and Martha when their 
brother was dead. 

When we die we shall still be in heaven. 
When worms become butterflies they have 
the same air and sun as when they were 
worms, only they enjoy the sun and air a 
great deal more, because they themselves are 
changed. 

So when we die we shall have the same 
God ip. whom we are living now. The same 
Jesus who is the light of this world will be 
the light of that world. If we cannot re- 
joice in the light here we shall not rejoice 
in Him there. 

IV. Finally, Jesus says that if we will do 
as He tells us we will believe in Him, be- 
cause He has made us so that we cannot 
help it. 



SAVING FAITH. 147 

You can try the truth of his words this 
minute if you like. 

Perhaps mother has been reading this ser- 
mon aloud to you. It would not be strange 
if you were tired. Perhaps she is tired too. 
Ask her. Say, " Mother, let me read to 
you! I will read anything you like, and 
I '11 try my best to read well." 

" That 's too much trouble," says self. 
" Do as you would be done by," says Jesus. 
Try Him, and see what comes of obeying 
Him. 

Perhaps it is Sunday. The day seems 
long and tedious. " I wish father would tell 
me a story." " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you do you even so unto 
them," says Jesus. But you don't know 
any story ! Then learn one. Take your 
Bible and learn this story of Paul and the 
jailer. Learn it so well that father will 
enjoy hearing you tell it. 

If you cannot yourself remember anything 
Jesus tells you to do, ask your mother to re- 
peat some command of his. Then do it at 
once with all your might. You will find that 
you cannot help believing in Him, and you 
will find you are in heaven. You will un- 



148 THE WORLD TO COME. 

derstand, too, better than all the preachers 
in the world can explain it, the meaning of 
the text: "Believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ and thou shalt be saved." 



XII. 

FRANKLIN SNOW. 

Covet earnestly the best gifts. — 1 Cor. xii. 31. 
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; 
but the greatest of these is charity. — 1 Cor. xiii. 13. 
Follow after charity. — 1 Cor. xiv. 1. 

While urging men to desire the best gifts 
the Apostle is careful to remind them what 
the best gifts are. Among them he does 
not mention any of the things which most 
of us spend our lives in seeking, but those 
only which, when our lives are spent, we 
shall wish we had spent them in obtaining. 
Those, he tells us, are faith, hope, charity. 
Such qualities of character are the sole pos- 
sessions which neither moth nor rust can cor- 
rupt, and which thieves cannot break through 
nor steal. If the Apostle's estimate of life is 
false, this sermon ought not to be preached. 
If the Apostle's words are true, to withhold 
it would be, in some sort, a crime. 

Franklin Snow was a private Christian 
gentleman. He never held a public office. 



150 THE WORLD TO COME. 

The papers neither chronicled his deeds nor 
heralded his praises. He was neither poet, 
orator, scholar, nor statesman. He had not 
even the poor renown of wealth. No insti- 
tution, endowed by him, perpetuates his 
name. He was a plain business man. If 
the success of a business man can be meas- 
ured by the amount of property he accumu- 
lates, his career cannot be called successful. 
When he died, a few brief paragraphs in 
the newspapers announced that a citizen of 
rare energy and worth had passed away. 

Why, then, should I disturb the silence 
that rests upon his memory ? He would not 
have wished to be spoken of in this public 
way. He desired no memorial, save that 
which he has written in hearts that love him. 
He shunned notoriety. Though his voice 
was so often heard in prayer-meeting, who 
can remember ever hearing him speak of 
himself ? Christ, duty, the Christian's joys, 
the Christian's privileges, these themes were 
continually upon his lips, but his own deeds, 
his own experiences, never. If, while he was 
seen among us, he avoided mention of him- 
self, far less does he desire it now. If we 
praise his virtues, he has already heard the 
Master say : " Well done ! " If we criticise 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 151 

his imperfections, he himself has learned to 
judge them by the standard which convicts 
the angels of folly. To him our best praises 
seem paltry now, our keenest censures super- 
ficial. 

But his life teaches a lesson we can ill af- 
ford to lose. If I should tell you the story 
of some dazzling genius, the recital would 
help you only in so far as a generous admi- 
ration always purifies the breast that feels 
it. We admire such careers ; we cannot 
imitate them. But achievements greater and 
far more to be desired than those which 
genius only can accomplish are possible to 
all of us. The best things God has put 
within the reach of every man. It is only 
the inferior things, the things for which 
God's immortal children cannot afford to 
be anxious, the things which we soon shall 
prize as we already prize the toys of our 
childhood ; it is only these which any man 
need forego. We cannot all have health 
and wealth and length of days, but we all 
may earn faith and hope and love. 

I do not point you to Franklin Snow for 
guidance in laying up what the world calls 
treasures, but in winning those possessions 
which God has placed us here to gain. 



152 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Therefore, I shall put slight emphasis upon 
his business abilities, great as they confes- 
sedly were, and shall dwell upon those suc- 
cesses w T hich he won with weapons offered to 
us all by the Master when He said : " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart and thy neighbor as thyself." 

By the Apostle's standard, was Mr. 
Snow's life a successful one ? 

To that question this seems the sufficient 
answer. Five weeks ago many of you at- 
tended his funeral in this place. It was the 
busiest hour of a business day. The snow 
and sleet were falling fast. The keen March 
wind blew savagely. Yet more than fifteen 
hundred men and women left their business, 
or their homes, and braved the fierce storm 
to come hither. While the vast congrega- 
tion waited, the silence was so deep, so ten- 
der, that one who closed his eyes might 
think the building empty. When oppor- 
tunity was given to look upon his face, all 
came forward. For nearly two hours the 
slow procession moved. Every moment of 
the time the air around his bier quivered 
with sobs. Men whom Mr. Snow's most in- 
timate friends had never seen before paused, 
bent over the still face, kissed the cold fore- 
head, and wept aloud. 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 153 

Who were these mourners? You saw 
them, and, therefore, know I do not exagger- 
ate their woe. One was a colored man, born 
and bred in slavery. " When I escaped 
from Richmond, he fed me and clothed me. 
He has been my father ever since ! " One 
was a woman infirm with age : " When I 
was intemperate and sold liquor years and 
years ago he saved me, and taught me to 
love Jesus." One was a young man univer- 
sally respected now : " When I had flung 
away my manhood, and could find no other 
friend to help me, he raised me from the 
mire, and made me all I am. He was as 
Christ to me." Such were some of the ex- 
clamations by which one and another of 
those who stood by weeping held up to view 
the garments which Dorcas had made. 

Among these mourners came the men he 
had employed in business. Many of them 
were of different nationalities, of different 
religious faiths from his. They were men 
unused to tears. But as they passed they 
clasped his hand, many of them kissed his 
face and wept as women weep. The man 
who has been for twelve years foreman in his 
business household, when led away almost by 
force, broke forth in loud and bitter cries 



154 THE WORLD TO COME. 

that still ring in your memory. And when 
the rest were gone, an old man lingered by 
the bier as if he could not go. In his des- 
olate face was written the woe he uttered : 
"I have been in his employ at times for 
five and twenty years. I have lost parents 
and children and wife. I thought I knew 
trouble, but I never felt all alone before." 

I have been a pastor eighteen years. I 
have attended many funerals, but I have 
never before seen the face of the dead kissed 
except by the lips of kinsmen. But here a 
multitude of men, who had never sat at his 
table, nor crossed the threshold of his home, 
were moved by an impulse that seemed ir- 
resistible to touch the dead face as Mary 
touched the living feet. 

If you would understand a man's true 
character, go to his place of business: ask 
the men he has employed, the men to whom 
he has given orders, paid wages ; the men 
who have worked for him and watched him 
while they worked : ask what they think of 
him, — ask when self-interest can no longer 
dictate their replies. If tears choke their 
voices when they try to tell you, mark that 
man, for there is something in him worth 
your minding. 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 155 

Society may be deceived in him ; the 
church may mistake long prayers for piety ; 
self-love may cherish wife and children ten- 
derly ; but a man's servitors learn to know 
him as he is. 

I will not pause to speak of letters which 
have come from far and near since that day, 
breathing the same sentiments which were 
manifested here, — letters some of them in 
which the writers attributed to him their own 
resurrection from sin into Christian man- 
hood. For a greater triumph than Caesar ever 
won that funeral procession seemed to me. 

In thirty-three years a generation passes. 
If of those whom he had in fifty years 
taught to love him so many remained in this 
world to mourn because he had left it, how 
vast must be the number of those who were 
waiting on the other side to rejoice at his 
coming ? To say : " We were hungry and 
he fed us, in prison and he visited us ! " 

Had he left millions of money and an in- 
tellectual renown like Webster's, these would 
have appeared paltry in comparison with 
what he carried with him to us who believe 
that love is the best possession. Therefore 
it seems worth our while to inquire why this 
man was so beloved ! How he made him- 



156 THE WORLD TO COME. 

self, as it were, a part of other men's lives! 
In what nursery the fruit he bore was 
ripened. 

Franklin Snow was the second of seven 
children. He was born at Orleans, Mass., 
fifty-one years ago the second of last March. 1 
His parents were devout. They were not 
wealthy, but the business of the father, a 
merchant, supported the family in comfort. 
Franklin had not fairly learned to walk when 
a serious illness deprived him for life of the 
sight of one eye. Before he was twelve 
years old his four sisters died. He was but 
twelve when he saw the form of his father 
laid in the church-yard beside the forms of 
his sisters. Then it became necessary for 
the boy to leave the village school, and for 
his brother Gideon, three years older than 
himself, to go to sea. At fourteen Franklin 
went to Provincetown alone, and there found 
employment among strangers. In less than 
a year he was brought back to Orleans pros- 
trated by typhus fever. His life was for a 
time despaired of. He awakened from deli- 
rium to learn that both his mother and his 
elder brother had taken the fever, and that 
their forms also lay in the church-yard. 
1 Spoken April, 1880. 






FRANKLIN SNOW. 157 

Father, mother, four sisters, elder brother, 
all had been taken. There was left to him, 
of all his family, but one, a brother seven 
years old. 

How cruel God often appears until time 
reveals his purposes ! Why should this boy, 
gifted with a nature so affectionate, be so 
fearfully bereaved ? Why should he be 
enfeebled by sickness at the crisis wh&n he 
most needed strength? Why should he be 
forced to go forth alone, among the dangers 
and hardships of the world, to fight the bat- 
tle of life, not only for himself, but for the 
child brother towards whom he felt thence- 
forth a father's love and a father's care? 
Such questions tempt one to doubt God's 
thought for orphans. But time often brings 
the answers to them. 

Here in this city of Boston is an insti- 
tution called " The Home for Little Wan- 
derers." In it thousands of orphans have 
found help and hope and happiness. It is 
among the most Christlike institutions of 
our city. Its existence and its success are 
largely if not mainly due to the labors, the 
sacrifices, and the prayers of Mr. Snow. 
His hands were among the first to found it. 
To his last day he carried it in his heart of 



158 THE WORLD TO COME. 

hearts. In the soul of the boy of fifteen, 
while he looked upon his own orphan brother, 
God wrote with the diamond-point of pain 
answers to the cries of many thousand or- 
phans. So was the Captain of our Salva- 
tion made perfect by suffering. It is suffi- 
cient for the disciple to be as his Master. 

Keenly as he felt his bereavements the boy 
uttered no complaint, but turned sturdily to 
his work. As soon as he had recovered 
sufficient strength to go he returned to Prov- 
incetown. In three years he achieved a 
position of responsibility and influence there. 
But success did not blind him to his lack 
of education. The nature of his occupation 
permitted him to be absent from it during 
the winter, and careful economy enabled him 
to spend two terms of four months each in 
Phillips Academy at Andover. 

He studied as he had worked, with all his 
might. Before the close of his first term 
his teachers advised him to prepare for a 
professional life. 

At Andover in his seventeenth year he 
deliberately gave himself to the service of 
Christ. There was at the time no special 
religious interest in the Academy. Some 
student, seeking assistants for the conduct 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 159 

of the weekly prayer-meeting, asked if he 
were a Christian. The question arrested 
his attention. He could not answer it. He 
retired to his room, locked the door, and 
resolved that he would not open it until 
he had answered the question. Then life 
opened to his thought as it had never done 
before. The narrow and the broad ways 
seemed to meet at the door of his little dor- 
mitory. When he opened it he must start 
forward upon one of them. Which should he 
choose ? He thought of his family in heaven. 
He thought of the child brother intrusted 
him to lead there. He reviewed his own 
career until the hand which had guided and 
protected him seemed almost visible. With 
a great joy of gratitude he grasped it con- 
sciously. On his knees he gave himself to 
God ; then arose and went forth to tell the 
boy who had asked him if he were a Chris- 
tian that he would try to help in the prayer- 
meetings. 

He threw himself into religious activities 
with the same energy which had given him 
success in business and in study. 

He began at once to work in the prayer- 
meeting and in the Sunday-school. Each 
Sunday he walked four miles to instruct a 



160 THE WORLD TO COME. 

handful of children in a neglected district. 
Friends felt it wise to warn him against 
the exhaustion that might come of excessive 
zeal. He answered : ;; I find it brings great 
good to myself to be thus engaged in reli- 
gious work, and that I need to attend on all 
the means of grace." 

He resolved, as one way of obeying the 
Master's last command, to speak in prayer- 
meeting whenever opportunity was offered. 
But he did not expect to speak without prep- 
aration. " One may pump forever/' he wrote, 
"and get no water out of a well that is dry." 
He began to read the Bible carefully and 
prayerfully. He took notes of the sermons 
he heard ; he wrote to Christian friends ask- 
ing for facts and suggestions to be used in 
prayer- meetings : he searched the papers 
and periodicals within his reach : he sought 
assistance of the Seminary students and 
professors in furnishing his mind, until the 
habit was formed in him of gathering un- 
consciously from all directions material for 
devotional utterance. This was the source 
of his freshness in religious meetings. 

With him religion was never a penance 
but always a delight. AVhat many do as a 
price to buy heaven he did because he loved 






FRANKLIN SNOW. 161 

to do it. Years after leaving Andover he 
wrote : " It appears to me that if the Sab- 
bath were blotted out of the privileges I 
enjoy, one half of all the pleasure of living 
would be lost." 

He greatly desired to be a minister. Dur- 
ing his second term the question was con- 
stantly in his mind. Friends and teachers 
advised him to gratify his wish. It cost 
him a hard struggle not to do so. A chief 
motive in his decision was that, unless he 
returned to business, means could not be 
furnished to prepare for the ministry another 
whom he believed by nature better fitted for 
it than himself. 

At eighteen he came to Boston. Flatter- 
ing offers had been made to detain him in 
Provincetown. The management of the 
business of the Union Wharf Company, 
with an ample salary, was offered him. It 
was a tempting prospect. But he declined 
it, believing that he needed a larger business 
experience than could be gained in a pro- 
vincial town. 

It is worth our while to consider what cap- 
ital this boy of eighteen brought to Boston. 
First of all, he brought a pure soul in a pure 
body. Mr. Snow, his own master from his 



162 THE WORLD TO COME. 

fourteenth year, was his own master. Cast 
at that early age into the midst of the 
world's temj)tations, without father, mother, 
or sister, he never experienced in any form 
the smirch of dissipation. Those w T ho have 
known him from childhood may be safely 
challenged to recall one gross utterance, one 
indelicate expression, from his lips. He af- 
filiated with the pure, because he was pure 
in heart. He never possessed that super- 
ficial polish of fine manners which is able to 
conceal a cancer in the soul. But in purity 
of manhood, in genuine delicacy and refine- 
ment of thought and feeling, he has been 
equalled by few and surpassed by none. 
His modesty was like the modesty of women 
in the presence of which vice cringes and is 
ashamed. When he gave his body to be a 
living sacrifice he had no infamous habits 
to eradicate, no pledges to sign, no infernal 
thirsts to fight, no festering ulcers to heal. 
AYith a magnificent physique, capable of 
bearing for years strains which would have 
crushed many a man in months, he began 
life's battle. 

Next in the inventory of his possessions 
were five years of business experience pa- 
tiently and laboriously acquired; habits of 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 163 

intense industry ; the confidence and good 
will of all who knew him ; the primary educa- 
tion of a village school ; the results of eight 
months well used at Andover ; the love of 
God supreme in his heart, and the necessity 
of earning each meal before he ate it. A 
finer capital who could ask? He sought 
employment at the leading fish-house in the 
city, and was told that, though no new help 
was needed, he might begin work on proba- 
tion at |250 a year. 

He had come from a position of authority 
and dignity, which he had been pressed to 
resume with increased emoluments. It was 
open to him still. But without hesitation 
he accepted the new position, which appears 
to have been offered with the expectation 
that he would decline it. "I hope," he 
wrote to his only confidential friend, " I 
hope I shall not have to ascend all the steps 
of clerkship as I have done, for that would 
seem pretty hard. My employment thus far 
has been principally to collect bills, to do 
some writing, to take care of the store, and 
when we have to deliver goods, I have to see 
to the marking. It is a place in which a 
great deal of business is done, and I think 
it an excellent one for a young man wishing 



164 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

to learn correct business habits." Brave, 
bright words ! 

It was not long before his employers found 
that they needed him ; found that they 
could not afford to dispense with him. He 
made all their interests his own. Each 
morning found him the first at the wharf, 
and the evenings saw him the last to leave 
it. A few months excepted, he remained 
with this house until he began business in 
his own name. By six years of faithful ser- 
vice he won such consideration in the house 
that, when the firm dissolved, each of the 
partners solicited his partnership in a new 
firm, and when that was declined, each of- 
fered him the capital required to establish 
him independently in business. The offer 
of one was accepted, and in 1853 the name 
of Franklin Snow appeared at the head of 
a firm, which in due time took front rank 
among the leading fish-houses of the United 
States. 

He had turned from the pulpit to the 
counting-room in obedience not to his de- 
sires, but to his sense of duty. He meant 
to serve God in his business. It was his 
conviction that all success depends upon the 
divine favor. Such errors as he made were 



FRANKLIN SNOW, 165 

errors of judgment. His exuberant hope- 
fulness at times hurried him into complica- 
tions which all his vast energy was not able 
to unwind. Even in questions of right and 
wrong his judgments were not infallible. 
Are any man's? But what he thought right 
he did. What he thought wrong he would 
not do. He abhorred deceit. He spoke the 
truth, even to his own hurt. God was in all 
his thoughts. 

He realized how easily the flame of devo- 
tion may be extinguished by the whirlwinds 
of the market. " I find myself in such a 
continued whirlpool of business," he wrote 
more than twenty years ago, "that some- 
times it seems I almost lose sight of that 
great light which came into the world to 
guide fallen men, but I hope by God's as- 
sistance to steer safely through the shoals 
and quicksands of this life. I cannot be 
too thankful that I gave my heart to God 
at the time I did, as now I fear I would not 
be able. It is true that we are all after the 
glittering gold which this world gives, but I 
think my thoughts are much on Christ and 
his glory." 

When Mr. Snow came to Boston he be- 
gan business in two places, — the wharf and 



166 THE WORLD TO COME. 

the church. He worked in each with equal 
energy. He united at once with Salem 
Street Church. He joined the choir, led 
the music, paid generously towards the ex- 
penses of the society, became one of the 
most active tract distributers. The pastor 
leaned on him as on a pillar. He was rarely 
absent from the prayer-meeting. He was 
chosen deacon. He was elected superinten- 
dent of the Sunday-school. 

Though never a wealthy man, his liberal- 
ity was great and increasingly great to the 
end of his life. In one of those early years 
he gave to benevolent operations half of all 
he possessed, in addition to those generous 
contributions for the support of his own 
church, which he counted the first items of 
his necessary personal expenses, and paid 
out of his meagre salary. Accident has 
brought this fact to my knowledge. It is a 
fair type of his bountiful benevolence. The 
sum of his benefactions is known only in 
heaven, for in these matters his left hand 
was not the confidant of his right. He 
counted himself a steward of God. Yet 
why should I dwell on this ? When a man 
has truly given himself to God, his money 
will always follow his heart. Mr. Snow 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 167 

gave money for others as pleasure-seekers 
spend money upon themselves. 

I cannot discover that he ever sought or 
felt the need of recreations other than the 
joy he found in worshipping God and serv- 
ing his fellow-men. But the recreations of 
others, especially of the young, he encour- 
aged with energetic sympathy. He never 
travelled except on business ; he rarely at- 
tended places of amusement, and never un- 
less by going he could contribute to another's 
pleasure. The rest which most of us seek 
in amusements he seemed to find in prayer 
and praise, singing and making melody in 
his heart. The joy of the Lord was his 
strength. Many have been surprised at the 
facility with which he turned from the cares 
of business to the comforts of prayer. He 
would work to the last moment in his count- 
ing-room with energy the most intense, then 
hasten across the street, enter a prayer- 
meeting, usually a little late, and speak or 
pray as if he had come directly from hours 
of uninterrupted meditation. The secret of 
this power is an open one. He never 
learned the distinction between religious and 
secular life. He did not believe that God 
was farther off on Monday than on Sunday, 



168 THE WORLD TO COME. 

or that He observed more carefully the way in 
which deacons distribute bread and wine at 
the communion than the way in which they 
distribute quintals of fish on week clays. 

The horizon of his charity was not 
bounded by the walls of his own church. I 
have said he was one of the founders of The 
Home for Little Wanderers. To the time 
of his death he continued one of its direc- 
tors and most efficient sustainers. The 
TTashingtonian Home, The Seaman's Friend 
Society. The Homoeopathic School of Medi- 
cine are largely indebted to him for the good 
they have accomplished. He was early in- 
terested in foreign missions, and became a 
generous supporter of the American Board. 
Since his death I have learned of five strong- 
churches which think they owe their lives to 
the timely aid he gave them unasked in the 
hours of their weakness and their need. It 
becomes us to remember that evening lonq; 
ao'o when a business meeting had convened 
in the rooms beneath to lay a new mort- 
gage upon the property already heavily bur- 
dened. Mr. Snow was present. He belonged 
to another church, and was carrying a large 
share of its expenses. But when he saw the 
trouble here his cheery voice rang out : 



FRANKLIN SNOW, 169 

" Why not pay the floating debt ! " He 
subscribed a third of the entire sum re- 
quired, the remainder was raised at once, 
and the gloom of the meeting was scattered 
by a hopeful dawn. 

Again let us not forget that when two 
years ago it was proposed to make that 
effort which has relieved our church from 
debt, — so that for the first time in its his- 
tory its members can at last say " We owe 
no man anything but to love one another," 
— when even the pastor believed the effort 
greater than we ought to attempt, it was the 
enthusiasm and energy of Mr. Snow which 
mastered our hesitation and inaugurated our 
success. 

More precious and more influential than 
his gifts of money were his gifts of time 
and thought for others. When he had be- 
come one of the prominent business men 
of Boston; in his own branch, I am told, 
the most widely known and the leading 
dealer in the land ; directing branch houses 
in different cities ; having established and 
still controlling a line of steamers to the 
Provinces ; a bank director ; carrying the 
work of his church almost as largely as its 
pastor ; an active member of the Boards of 



170 THE WORLD TO COME. 

The Little Wanderers' Home, The Wash- 
ingtonian Home, The Seaman's Friend So- 
ciety ; sustaining near his place of business 
a daily prayer-meeting, from which he was 
never absent at noon each day, this man 
still finds time to listen whenever suffering 
whispers in his presence, to go wherever 
prospect appears of saving a soul from sin. 
When his employees meet him for half an 
hour of prayer, they come feeling that their 
employer is their brother; they return to 
their work feeling that their brother is their 
employer. But they do not know that in 
the little memorandum book he always car- 
ries with him many of their names are writ- 
ten with a word or two that indicates their 
needs, and guides him as he plans for their 
spiritual health and remembers them in his 
secret prayers. 

But, friends, it is not what we do but what 
we are that creates our influence and decides 
our destiny. Our deeds are only chisels 
with which our characters are sculptured. 
I have given this outline of biography to 
indicate the school in which the man we 
mourn was formed. It was not what he did 
but what he was that made Franklin Snow 
so well beloved. 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 171 

You have resolved to place his portrait in 
your prayer-room. There it will say to all 
who knew him, with an emphasis not possible 
to naked words, Faith, Hope, Charity; 

BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY. 

His faith was great, his hope was great. 
Both were in him the children of Charity. 

1. Men loved him because he loved men. 
You know how his great heart beat toward 
you, his associates in this church. But he 
could also feel for those with whose ways 
he could not sympathize. To the drunkard 
this most temperate of men was a brother. 
To the profligate this pure man was a stern 
but tender friend. For the penurious this 
generous giver had never a word of criti- 
cism. In transgressors he saw brothers to 
be helped. The sins of men grieved but did 
not easily provoke him. His mission was 
not to censure but to save. 

He was long-suffering with the fallen. 
Again and again he has lifted the same man 
from the same mire, still hoping all things. 
He taught the despairing to hope for them- 
selves because he still hoped for them. 

After years of intimacy I cannot recall a 
word spoken by him of the absent which he 
would not have spoken in their presence. 



172 THE WORLD TO COME. 

When he could not praise he was silent. 
But when his official duty in the church 
compelled him to recognize evil in others 
and describe it, he painted the guilty as the 
Greek artist painted Alexander, — the mon- 
arch's hand covering the scar upon his brow, 
— that so he might follow charity in loyalty 
to truth. 

He was quick to sympathize with the joys 
of others, for next to making men good he 
delighted in making them happy. 

Born on that sandy stretch of land which, 
coveting no luxury of flowers or of fruits, 
thrusts its brave breast far forth into the 
Atlantic, meets the cold north currents, 
turns them from Rhode Island and Connec- 
ticut, and gives to those states the mild and 
genial climate it seeks not for itself, his 
birthplace typifies himself. Early taught 
by stern necessity to live for another, years 
confirmed in him that love which seeketh 
not her own. 

2. Hope ! He was its harbinger, its incar- 
nation. He radiated joy as the sun sheds 
light. He seemed the gladdest man I ever 
knew. He was born with a buoyant tem- 
perament. But natural spirits alone cannot 
sustain such joyousness as his beneath such 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 173 

burdens as he bore. The chirrup of the 
cricket ceases when the fire is extinguished. 
They only can sing always who have learned 
the song of Moses and the Lamb. Men 
who forget that through much tribulation 
we must enter the kingdom may be sur- 
prised to know the school in which his glad- 
ness grew. If the expression did not belong 
to the high and holy One, we might be 
tempted while we consider the early life of 
our friend to call him "a man of sorrows," 
and to marvel that he least of all could be 
called a sorrowful man. His later life was 
not remote from grief. Three of his chil- 
dren he followed to the grave. After years 
of incessant toil he was compelled to en- 
dure in his business experience a mortifica- 
tion and anguish whose poignancy God only 
knew. He carried it so nobly that strangers 
scarcely suspected it was in him. The shock 
of it was the initial cause of his death. He 
carried that sorrow to his grave. For years 
he has been an overworked, a tired man. 
His health had been so impaired that animal 
spirits were replaced by physical depression. 
Yet still the bright face beamed hope and 
cheer among us. Still strangers visiting our 
church inquired who it was that " furnished 



174 THE WORLD TO COME. 

sunshine for that aisle." His face drove 
away despondency. It made us ashamed to 
moan. When others pointed to the shadow, 
he pointed to the sun that cast it. When 
others said, " We fear the thunder in the 
cloud," he said, " The cloud is his chariot." 
His presence in the prayer-meeting was as 
the coming of a spring breeze to refresh 
others less weary than himself. In his death 
it seems not so much as if a star had been 
taken from our sky, but rather as if some 
strange eclipse was shedding gloom from 
horizon to horizon. 

And this was more than a sunny temper- 
ament. It came of discipline and prayer. 
He schooled himself to carry his sorrows 
alone, and to share his joys with all. So the 
fine furnace receives the black coals into its 
heart, and gives them back to others trans- 
muted into radiance and warmth. There 
is no quality of manhood rarer than this. 
To say, while bearing the cross, " My joy I 
give unto you." This is the offspring of 
that love which seeketh not her own, which, 
when it fasts, disfigures not the counte- 
nance, but anoints the head and washes the 
face, and appears not unto men to fast, but 
unto the Father which seeth in secret. 



FRANKLIN SNOW. 175 

3. His faith came of obedience working by- 
love. His trust in God was of the uncon- 
scious sort which children have toward their 
parents. It was not gained by reasoning, 
and by reasoning it could not be displaced. 
By doing the will of God he came to know 
the truth of Christ. He was not conscious 
of that religious uncertainty which permeates 
the air. Sermons to Thomas seemed to him 
a waste of time. Eternal verities were real- 
ities to him. He could not argue in defence 
of them, for that would imply a possibility 
of their being false. But when one's spirit 
was tormented with doubts of that which 
to doubt is a living death, — doubts which 
learned doctors cannot cure, — his presence 
and his prayers would often banish them as 
sunlight drives away the dismal creatures 
that infest the night. 

As one who, laboring with gauze and 
velvet and knife and needle, makes at last 
an artificial flower, fastens the poor thing on 
her bosom, and goes forth proud of her or- 
nament ; but when she sees by the wayside 
a violet which has grown, no one knows how, 
by simply looking at the sun, receiving the 
dew of heaven, and letting its heart dilate as 
the spirit of beauty inspires, the lady casts 



176 THE WORLD TO COME. 

aside her artificial gaud, and clasps the gen- 
uine flower; so I turn from the reasonings 
of the schools to the grand child-like faith 
of this inerudite disciple ; faith which grew 
strong in the world's highway through sim- 
ply loving the Lord Jesus and doing his 
commandments, — and know that my Re- 
deemer liveth. 

When our hearts are heavy and our way 
grows dark, when we are tempted to fear 
that God has forgotten us, let us remember 
the orphan child, enfeebled by sickness, leav- 
ing his ruined home. Let us follow him in 
our thought through six and thirty years of 
trials, struggles, victories, defeats, till we see 
the great multitude weeping around his bier. 
Let us think of the life he is living now, and 
return to our appointed work reassured that 
the hairs of our heads also are numbered by 
One who is with us always even unto the end 
of the world. 



XIII. 

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED ? 

Sirs, what must I do to be saved ? — Acts xvi. 30. 

This is a question often asked, and rarely 
answered. Every good resolution formed, 
every evil habit combated, evinces a soul 
asking what it must do to be saved. At 
times the quest grows eager. The man is 
burdened with the weight of his immortality. 
Unrest deepens into anguish. Silent ques- 
tionings become outcries. He turns to those 
in whom he confides, — the men on whom he 
recognizes the livery of the Great King, — 
saying, " Sirs, what must I do to be saved ? " 

The question was asked by many persons, 
in varied and dissimilar circumstances, of 
the inspired teachers. By them, I think, it 
was never answered twice in precisely the 
same terms. If each of us should ask the 
question of many religious teachers, it is 
probable that we would all receive nearly the 
same reply; we would be answered in one 



178 THE WORLD TO COME. 

of two or three stereotyped phrases, — we 
would be told to " believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ," or to " give our hearts to Jesus," or 
" to love Jesus." 

I will endeavor to remind you, first, how 
the Master and his Apostles answered the 
question, and then to compare our answers 
with theirs. 

1. As far as the New Testament shows, 
when any man inquired what he should do 
to be saved, the inspired teachers pointed 
him to some one definite, intelligible act. It 
was generally something he was least in- 
clined to do. It was always something he 
could not possibly misunderstand. We will 
commence at the beginning. 

John the Baptist came preaching in the 
wilderness of Judaea, and saying, " Repent 
ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
Many hearts were stirred by religious feel- 
ing. Multitudes came to the preacher, ask- 
ing what they should do. Their fears and 
their hopes had been excited. They felt the 
need of more instruction. " What do you 
mean by telling us to repent ? We want to 
repent. Tell us how. What shall we do ? " 

To each the prophet returned a swift, 
clear-cut, piercing reply, — such a reply that 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED t 179 

the seeker could not remain in doubt what 
he ought to do next ; could not remain an 
instant groping for the door, as a man gropes 
in the dark. 

We have reports of four interviews with 
four different classes of inquirers. 

First. The Pharisees and Sadducees 
came to him. They represented the religious 
classes ; they filled that place among the con- 
temporaries of John which professing Chris- 
tians, church -members, occupy among us. 
Some of them were good men. Some of 
them were bad men. All supposed them- 
selves special favorites of Heaven, because 
they were lineal descendants of Abraham. 
God had covenanted, long before, to remem- 
ber the seed of Abraham forever. On that 
promise they grounded their hopes. When 
these men asked, " What shall we do ? " 
John said to them, " Stop saying to your- 
selves we have Abraham to our father ; for 
God is able of these stones to raise up chil- 
dren unto Abraham. Judge yourselves by 
the same standards you apply to other men. 
A wicked Pharisee is not better off than 
a wicked publican, but worse; for he sins 
against more light. If you are good men, 
and bear good fruit, well ; if you are bad 



180 THE WORLD TO COME. 

men, and bear bad fruit, the axe is laid at 
your roots ; ye shall be hewn down, and 
cast into the fire." 

From the New Testament we have fabri- 
cated a theory the f ac-simile of that which 
the Pharisees constructed from the Old. 
We have abused Paul's doctrine of the per- 
severance of the saints, into a notion that 
men who have passed through a certain 
gamut of emotions will be saved, whether 
they become saints or continue sinners. 
This notion, utterly without scriptural war- 
rant, tinges our thinking, and twists our 
practice. Translated into the language of 
to-day, John's words are addressed to us, 
members of churches, and they are these : 
" Think not to say within yourselves, we 
have been converted, we are safe ; for I say 
unto you, God is able out of those wooden 
pews to raise up converted men. The axe 
is laid at your roots. Every one of you that 
beareth not fruit shall be hewn down, and 
cast into the fire." All spiritual children 
of Abraham bear fruit. The promises are 
for them alone. All truly converted persons 
become good ; not perfect in a moment, — 
there are unlovely Christians, — but better 
than they were before they were converted. 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 181 

There must be a change in fact, not in 
fancy. 

Second. The common people came, ask- 
ing, " What shall we do ? " The answer 
was equally precise: "Let him that hath 
two coats give to him that hath none ; and 
he that hath meat, let him do likewise." 

The masses are poor. Poverty tends to 
make men penurious. The drudgery of in- 
cessant toil, with small returns, tends to 
render them over-careful. One who has in- 
herited wealth, or won it by speculation, is 
prone to prodigality. But when a competence 
is obtained cent by cent, saving here and 
grinding there, the tendency is to hardness. 
Money being the one thing toiled for, and 
saved for, and lived for, assumes an undue 
value in the possessor's eyes : it is hard for 
him to give it away. Despite the splendid 
exceptions, which gleam in the lives of the 
poor like diamonds set in black, poverty is 
prone to make men thoughtless of others, 
over-careful for themselves. To this class 
of men, asking what they should do, John 
replied, " Give, give, give." 

Third. The publicans asked, "What 
shall we do?" These were the tax-gather- 
ers. It was more difficult for them to de- 



182 THE WORLD TO COME. 

fraud their government than it is for our 
revenue collectors ; but it was much easier 
for them to levy blackmail upon the people. 
They could not reach up and take from the 
Roman eagle's nest ; his eyes were too keen, 
his talons too sharp : but they could reach 
down into the people's pockets, and take 
what they would. 

There was no power to prevent the pub- 
lican from visiting any merchant and de- 
manding a talent. If asked the reason of 
the tax, the reply was at hand, " Because, if 
you do not hand over one, I will have you 
fined two ! " The merchant must choose be- 
tween bribery and ruin. If he refused the 
claim, the wealth of government would be 
used against him. It cost the publican noth- 
ing to go to law: government paid his 
costs. But it would be costly for the private 
individual, and he was sure of losing his case. 
This was the reason why the people so thor- 
oughly detested the publicans. Doubtless 
there were honest tax-gatherers besides Zac- 
cheus and Levi ; but history has not preserved 
their names. The taint of their class was 
upon all. They could not be respected. 
They must be rich, or ciphers. The govern- 
ment's enormous demands allowed no margin 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 183 

for legitimate profits. They could not gain 
wealth by fair means. The temptation to 
gain it by foul means was superlative. 

To the publicans John said simply, " Ex- 
act no more than is appointed you." Trans- 
lated into the language of to-day, his words 
are to every whiskey inspector, bank ex- 
aminer, custom-house officer, revenue col- 
lector, government employee from the chief 
magistrate down to the municipal policeman, 
who would save his soul, u Take nothing 
more than your salary." If this command 
were obeyed, the machinery of government 
might stop, but the wheels of God's kingdom 
might advance more swiftly than they do. 

Fourth. The soldiers came, asking, 
" What shall we do ? " The special sins of 
those soldiers were three. Familiarity with 
bloodshed had brutalized them. Further, 
they were in a subjugated country. Sedi- 
tion was punishable not only by death, but 
by confiscation of the convict's property. 
Part of the confiscated wealth fell to the 
executioners. The soldiers were the exe- 
cutioners. They were therefore strongly 
tempted to accuse innocent persons in order 
to obtain their wealth. Again: the stated 
pay, even of Roman soldiers, was small. 



184 THE WORLD TO COME, 

Booty and glory were the expected com- 
pensations. In small and conquered prov- 
inces, like Syria, there was no prospect of 
glory or of booty. Hence the temptation to 
mutinous discontent was strong, because the 
voyage was monotonous, and the hope of 
prize-money small. 

To those soldiers John said, — 
" Do no violence." 
" Accuse no man falsely." 
And, hardest of all, — 
" Be content with your wages." 
These are the only recorded conversations 
of John with inquirers. He gave each some- 
thing definite to do. It was, in each case, 
the thing the seeker was least likely and 
least willing to do. John allowed no one to 
remain a moment in doubt. He encouraged 
none to spend ten seconds examining the 
quality of their emotions. Whether they 
felt well, or ill, or indifferently, he treated 
as a matter altogether immaterial. If they 
began to be better men than they had been, 
that was evidence of their repentance ; if 
they were not better men, — no matter what 
they felt or hoped or feared, — they had not 
repented. He said to each one, " Stop do- 
ing the wrong you have been doing ; begin 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 185 

the right you have been neglecting : " and 
he showed each what that meant for him. 

We pass on to the Master's instruction to 
inquirers. To the young man asking what 
he should do to inherit eternal life, Jesus 
replied, " Keep the commandments." This 
the young man claimed to have done. 
" What more shaU I do ? " — " Sell all thou 
hast, and give to the poor," replied the Lord. 
When men impressed by the Master's mira- 
cles came to him, he assigned them duties 
equally definite. He bade some leave their 
friends, even their unburied fathers, and en- 
dure the hardship of following Him who 
had not where to lay his head ; or he directed 
others to forego the luxury of his presence, 
return to their own friends, and face the 
odium of being called disciples of the Na- 
zarene. 

He laid no emphasis upon emotions, but 
endeavored to make the inquirer's emotions 
the steam to drive his conduct. He warned 
men not to base their confidence upon their 
feelings. When Peter was sure of himself, 
because he felt full of love, Jesus warned him 
of the approaching fall. When surrounded 
by crowds of enthusiastic and admiring hear- 
ers, he would not trust himself to them, be- 



186 THE WORLD TO COME. 

cause he knew what was in men, but de- 
parted secretly out o£ their midst. When 
the whole city approached him, waving 
branches, and shouting " Hosanna in the 
highest," his eyes were wet with tears, while 
he cried, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! that 
stonest the prophets." 

Paul's example travels the same path. 
He abounds in lists of vices and virtues. 
He reiterates, that if men's emotions lead 
them to perform the virtues and avoid the 
vices, they have evidence that they are con- 
verted. Emotions which do not work this 
result are delusive. Sorrow itself in the sin- 
ner may be a sign of good or of evil. The 
only proof that it is not a sorrow itself need- 
ing to be repented of, is, that it works cer- 
tain practical results. 

The New Testament seeks in men's con- 
duct the evidence of their conversion. We 
almost never seek it there. 

2. Our answers to inquirers are generally 
vague. When a man under religious excite- 
ment asks us what he shall do, we rarely tell 
him anything definite, — anything he can 
understand. If the most penurious man we 
know asked what he should do to be saved, 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 187 

we should not dare to tell him, " Give a hun- 
dred thousand dollars to the poor ; " yet we 
all should feel that his religion would be a 
sham until it touched his pockets. 

Afraid to tell men they must do right if 
they would be saved, we take refuge in cer- 
tain scriptural phrases, which were once full 
of meaning, but which are empty cups as we 
offer them. 

First. We tell men " to repent." Sup- 
pose they ask us what we mean. We do not 
mean u feel distressed." The man is dis- 
tressed ; we want to relieve him. We dare 
not say, feel happy ; there may be no ground 
in him for rejoicing. 

The Apostles would not have delayed an 
instant over the man's feelings. They would 
have discovered his besetting sin, or his near- 
est neglected duty, and directed him to that. 
If penurious, they would have told him to 
give to the poor. If he were a coward, they 
would have told him that he must be born, 
not only of the Spirit, but of water ; that is, 
baptized, — wear publicly in daylight the 
badge of the new and despised calling, in- 
stead of seeking Jesus by night, for fear of 
the Jews. 

This would be the result. Either the in- 



188 THE WORLD TO COME. 

quirer would obey, and gain strength of 
character, — become a better man, — or he 
would go away sorrowful, knowing that he 
was not a Christian. There would be no 
possibility of self-delusion ; no possibility of 
his settling down, with heart unchanged, into 
a deadly lethargy of church - membership, 
until startled by the revealing voice, " I 
never knew you ! " 

Second. Another cloud in which we take 
refuge is this : " Give yourself to Jesus." 
The phrase is hallowed by so long a usage, 
that we suppose it quite intelligible. Doubt- 
less, when first employed, the phrase was 
terse and clear ; but it has risen like a fog, 
to hide the gate of God from many an in- 
quirer. " You tell me to give myself to 
Jesus : " I want to ; but how can I ? You 
have been urging me to do a definite act ; 
but when I ask you what I am to do, you 
sing to me, — 

" Nothing either great or small remains for me to do." 

Now the expression, " Give yourself to 
Jesus," means exactly this : obey Jesus. 
When we say a man is giving himself to 
drink, we mean he gets drunk. Giving 
one's self to study means studying. To 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 189 

give one's self to fashion, means to obey 
fashion. Giving one's self to Garibaldi, 
means obeying Garibaldi. To give yourself 
to Jesus, means to obey Jesus, — to begin 
doing instantly, without reference to your 
inward sensations, the thing Jesus has com- 
manded ; probably a different thing in the 
case of each one of you. 

If you are angry, it means, " First, go 
and be reconciled to thy brother, and then 
come and offer thy gift." If, like Peter, 
you are afraid of an unbelieving world, it 
means, u Go feed my sheep, and dare to be 
crucified for it with your head downward, if 
need be." 

Third. We often bewilder men by telling 
them to " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." 
The inquirer replies, " I do believe that 
Jesus is the Christ ; I always have believed : 
it is impossible for me to believe more than 
I do." 

When the Apostles employed that expres- 
sion, it carried a definite and exact idea. It 
meant what giving one's self to Christ means, 
— it meant obeying Christ. 

Here is a sick man, and he has no hope 
of recovery. You tell him, if he only be- 
lieved in your doctor, he would get well. 



190 THE WORLD TO COME. 

You do not mean that any change of opinion, 
or any new intellectual appreciation in itself, 
will cure him ; but that taking your doctor 
for his doctor, swallowing his medicines, 
obeying his directions, will bring health. 

Believe, and be baptized, said Paul to the 
jailer. Till then, the jailer was one of the 
pagans. For him to submit to baptism was 
to take the first prescription ; it was to break 
with his old and degrading associates and as- 
sociations, to take the first step among new 
and redeeming company. It was to take 
Jesus for his Lord and Saviour. 

3. I have said that, if we imitate the 
Master, we will help the inquirer to perceive 
his nearest neglected duty, and urge him to 
seek evidence of his conversion in the faith- 
ful performance of that. 

This we rarely do. If any man has been, 
thou oil ever so long a 2:0, under certain reli- 

O © © 7 

gious impressions, — if he has felt first dis- 
tressed and afterwards delighted, — we re- 
ceive this as the most satisfactory evidence 
of conversion. Unless he has subsequently 
been flagranti} 7 immoral, no examining com- 
mittee questions his evidences ; least of all 
does he doubt them himself. I can find no 
warrant for this in the Bible. Paul did not 



WE AT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 191 

base his hopes on the visions he had seen, 
but labored lest, while saving others, he 
should himself become a castaway. There 
was nothing in Peter's past that ought to 
have dried denying Peter's tears. 

By this, John knew that he had passed 
from death unto life : not because a divine 
voice had called him from the nets ; not be- 
cause he had lain upon the Saviour's bosom ; 
not because his heart had glowed with rap- 
ture of apocalyptic vision ; not because he 
had been called the disciple whom Jesus 
loved ; not because he had loved the breth- 
ren, and for their sakes endured tribulation ; 
not because he had been persecuted for the 
faith, — but because then, at the time of 
writing, he obeyed Christ by loving the 
brethren. Another might have had all his 
past experiences; but if such a man said 
he loved God, while hating his brother, he 
would be a liar, and the truth not in him. 

Paul, Peter, John, would no more have 
based their hopes upon some past sensations 
than you would think of dining to-day on 
the memory of the milk you drank in in- 
fancy. The result of our vague and often 
deluding replies to inquirers is seen in the 
condition of Christian communities. Men 



192 THE WORLD TO COME. 

have not been trained to seek evidence of 
conversion in performance of duties, but in 
experience of prescribed sensations. There 
are men and women not a few, in the 
churches, who will never draw nearer heaven 
until some influence sweeps away their " evi- 
dences." They trust in them, not in Christ. 
How often do we hear men say, " I am sure 
I am a Christian, because I once felt thus 
and so." If Jesus Christ were dead, it 
would be equally true that they once ex- 
perienced those feelings. They are like the 
enchanted sleepers, nodding before the ma- 
gician's lyre. If conscience pricks, they find 
balm in their " evidences." They neither 
watch nor pray ; they enter freely into 
temptation ; they do not love the Master's 
work; they do not feed the hungry, nor 
clothe the naked, nor visit the sick and in 
prison : they do worship mammon ; they do 
love the chief seats in the synagogues, and 
to be called of men Rabbi ! When God 
rains conviction, they make a stout um- 
brelH of their " evidences," and not a drop 
touches them. 

Beside these self-satisfied ones, who think 
the work was all completed long ago, sit 
others of a different temper, — men prayer- 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 193 

ful, men with a sorrowful sense of sin, men 
struggling against temptation. They have 
a deep appreciation of Jesus' character. 
They strive to imitate and obey Him. Daily 
they climb upwards. But they do not count 
themselves Christians ; others do not count 
them Christians. Sleek Pharisees lament 
over them as " sinners,' 9 because they have 
had no such emotional experience as dead 
professors delight in. 

These men I count as the most hopeful 
candidates for heaven. They are spared the 
peril of relying upon past evidences, and 
they shall have the sweet surprise of those 
who say, " Lord, when saw we thee in prison, 
and visited thee ? " 

The first class are like those prairie-trees 
that glowed an hour in glorious flame, when 
the fire swept the plain, and ever since have 
stood dead, charred trunks. The other class 
are like the hidden germs, warmed by the 
same heat, which grew unseen, and made the 
harvest. 



XIV. 

WHAT HAS GOD DONE TO SAVE ME? 

And there cometh to him a leper beseeching him, and 
kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou 
wilt, thou canst make me clean. And being moved with 
compassion, he stretched forth his hand and touched him, 
and saith unto him, I will, be thou clean. And straight- 
way the leprosy departed from him, and he was made 
clean. — Makk i. 40-43. (R. V.) 

The text leads us to consider a momen- 
tous theme, the salvation of our souls. But 
what I have to say will not be worth your 
minding, unless we can keep steadily in 
mind three facts, which, though they are 
familiar and certain, are often overlooked 
precisely when they should fill the horizon 
of our thoughts. The facts are these : — 

I. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to- 
day, and forever. 

II. He who hath seen Him hath seen the 
Father. 

III. In the New Testament the same 
word is, when used to describe Christ's 
treatment of sick bodies, translated, " make 



WHAT HAS GOD DONE TO SAVE ME? 195 

whole," that is, " restore to health," but, 
when employed to describe Christ's treat- 
ment of sinful souls, is rendered " save," 
whatever that may mean. 

For example : In the account of the cure 
of the issue of blood, the word occurs three 
times. The woman thought, " If I may but 
touch his garment I shall he made ichole" 
The Master said, " Daughter, be of good 
comfort ; thy faith hath made thee whole" 
The evangelist adds, she " was made per- 
fectly whole" 

But the same word is rendered, " They 
shall call his name Jesus, because He shall 
save his people from their sins ; " " The 
Son of Man is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost." 

By using two distinct English words, 
which are not synonyms, to render the same 
original, a fact which Christ taught with 
careful emphasis has been obscured ; namely, 
that his healing men's bodies illustrated and 
revealed what He came into the world to do 
for our souls. He compared himself to a 
physician, not because he ministered unto 
the body, but to the spirit. It was not of 
invalids, but of robust publicans and sinners, 
that he said, " They that are whole have no 



196 THE WORLD TO COME. 

need of a physician, but they that are sick. 
I am come not to call the righteous, but sin- 
ners to repentance." The divinely offered 
key, therefore, to a right appreciation of 
Christ's spiritual work, even to that which 
theologians call the Atonement, should be 
sought, I think, by observing how our Lord 
cleansed the lepers, made the blind to see, 
and the lame to walk. And this is, I believe, 
the only key which has not been employed to 
unlock that mystery. 

Let us endeavor to realize how He, whose 
name is the only name given under heaven 
among men whereby we may be saved, 
healed men's diseases, in order that we may 
understand, so far as it has been revealed, 
how He saves us from our sins. 

I. Consider first why Jesus healed. There 
came a leper to Him. The leper knelt be- 
fore Him, beseeching Him and crying, " If 
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean/' 

" If thou wilt " is not a future. The verb 
is in the present tense and signifies volition. 
The words mean, " If you wish to, you can 
cure me." 

Some exegetes infer, from a Greek word 
employed later in the narrative, that the 
leper must have entered the house where 



WHAT HAS GOB DONE TO SAVE ME? 197 

Jesus was teaching. Others think that he 
came to Christ when the multitude followed 
bim down the Mount of the Beatitudes. 
For a leper to do either of these things was 
an outrage. It was as if a man broken out 
with small-pox should enter a street-car or 
walk down that aisle. Jesus himself rebuked 
the man sharply, we read in the forty-third 
verse. But he did not rebuke until he had 
healed him. Remember that by coming to 
this place the leper had broken both the 
civil and ecclesiastical law; he had defied 
the commandments given through Moses ; 
possibly he had endangered the health, even 
the lives of others ; certainly he had greatly 
alarmed them. They were many; he was 
one. He had therefore done an exceedingly 
selfish act. Still, when the leper cried, " You 
can heal me if you wish to," Jesus was sorry 
for him. He said, " I do wish to heal you." 

Then Christ healed the man, not to show 
that He could, but because He pitied the 
sufferer. 

This was characteristic of all our Lord's 
cures. When asked to work miracles to 
prove his ability to do so, He habitually 
declined. Every act of healing wrought 
by Christ was an act of pure compassion. 



198 THE WORLD TO COME. 

He never healed to attract attention to him- 
self. He often commanded those He healed 
to say nothing of their cure. Often, as in 
this instance, he sent the man he had healed 
instantly away out of sight. When, in 
spite of his wish, his miracles attracted so 
much attention that men's minds were by 
them diverted from his teachings, "He 
departed out of their midst," and went 
where He could preach to ears that were not 
stopped by wonder. He fed the multitudes 
because He had compassion upon them, see- 
ing that they were hungry and faint and had 
far to go. 

" Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever." 

" He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." 

II. Consider next how Jesus healed. 

1. The fact that He had compassion upon 
them was itself the first step in the cure of 
many who came to Him. 

Physicians tell me there are diseases in 
which recovery must begin by regaining lost 
self-respect. The most hopeless symptom 
of certain maladies — generally they are 
those induced by dissipation — is a sense 
of utter degradation. It may be only the 



WHAT HAS GOD DONE TO SAVE ME? 199 

reflection of a false but intense public opin- 
ion. Strangers say, " I will waste no sympa- 
thy on him. He has only what he deserves. 
He ought to be ashamed of himself." Never 
a trace of such sentiment in Christ's treat- 
ment of any man. The most dissolute and 
disgraced found in Him not only pity, but 
a delicate considerateness which rekindled 
their self-respect. The demoniacs belonged 
to a class degraded by their own conduct, at 
least according to a current opinion, which 
may have been false, but certainly obtained. 
Christ began the cure of the demoniac of 
Gadara by treating him with the respect one 
gentleman shows toward another ; treating 
him as the poor creature had not been 
treated since his malady began. He in- 
quired, " What is thy name ? " It was 
equivalent to exchanging cards in modern 
high society. The demoniac had cried out, 
" What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou 
Son of the Most High God." Christ replied 
in effect, " You have mentioned my name : 
may I ask yours ? " 

He completed the cure by sending the 
man home to those who had known only to 
despise him, with this message, " Go tell thy 
friends that God hath had compassion on 



200 THE WORLD TO COME. 

thee, and give theui the proof. Show them 
what great things God hath done for thee." 
It was like sending to his home, decorated 
with orders from the sovereign, one who had 
left his native city a disgraced beggar. 

When a man palsied by his own sins — 
we have the Master's authority for that — 
had been borne of four and laid before Him, 
while the Pharisees from Jerusalem regarded 
him with contemptuous repugnance, as 
thoughtless or inexperienced men often look 
upon a confirmed inebriate, Our Lord be- 
gan that man's cure by restoring his self-re- 
spect. He said, "Thy sins are forgiven 
thee." That is, " God respects you." 

He treated these invalids as He treated 
the publicans and sinners. When they 
" drew near for to hear Him," and the Phar- 
isees "murmured, saying, This man receiv- 
eth sinners and eateth with them," He spoke 
the parable of the prodigal, which said to 
the outcasts, " God is glad you have come, 
though these religious teachers think them- 
selves defiled by your approach." 

But of all Christ's acts no other, I think, 
so instantaneously restored to men that lost 
self-respect, without which physical recovery 
is sometimes, and moral reformation is al- 
ways, impossible, as his touching the lepers. 



WHAT HAS GOD DONE TO SAVE ME? 201 

We can scarcely conceive what the effect 
must have been upon a man who had for 
years been closeted with his loathsome self, 
or with still more loathsome fellow-sufferers ; 
a man who might not eat with human beings 
unless the same deadly taint was upon them, 
nor appear in the street except jangling a 
bell to give warning of the peril his presence 
brought ; who, if he patted upon the head a 
carrion dog, it must be instantly killed, lest 
it should brush against others and defile 
them because he had touched it ; who, if he 
saw his mother, his child, his wife approach 
must fly or shout, " Unclean, unclean, keep 
afar ! " We can scarcely conceive what the 
effect must have been upon such a man, 
when he saw Jesus draw nigh. 

The multitude attending the Saviour falls 
back as men shrink from the plague, for 
crowds are always cowards. But the Master 
approaches, and paying no heed to the j an- 
gling-bell, the warning cry, lays his hand 
upon him. For the first time in years the 
leper feels the touch of a hand that is not 
hardened by the awful malady. That touch 
must have made the leper a new man in 
heart before the quickened pulse could shoot 
new life into the decaying limbs. 



202 THE WORLD TO COME. 

2. But more is signified in those words : 
" He put forth his hand and touched him." 
They suggest, what other passages confirm, 
that in healing Christ made effort. We are 
accustomed to think of the Master's miracles 
as wrought without exertion. As if they 
cost Him nothing ; as if He were a piece of 
machinery, an iron man, no more exhausted 
by the good He did than is an elevator 
which carries you aloft by steam. But 
Christ is not so revealed. It is written, 
" Himself took our infirmities, and bore our 
diseases ; " " He hath borne our griefs, and 
carried our sorrows, and by his stripes are 
we healed." 

If you have watched one suffer whose pain 
it was harder to behold than to endure, be- 
cause you loved her more than she loved her- 
self ; if you have held your own little child 
in the dental chair while the great tooth was 
drawn, and almost rebelled against the fiat 
which prevented you from taking the pain 
you were compelled to witness, — you have 
a guide to the right understanding of those 
words. One must be blind to read the New 
Testament, and fancy Christ's cures cost 
Him nothing because He was divine. It was 
because He was divine that they cost Him so 



WHAT HAS GOD DONE TO SAVE ME? 203 

much. If you would seek beings incapable 
of suffering, you must go not up toward the 
angels and the great white throne, for there 
you will find " the Lamb as it had been 
slain," but down among the oysters. 

Ewald, who has seen further than most 
into the spirit of the New Testament, re- 
minds us that when Christ healed the dumb 
man, He looked up to heaven as if seeking 
reinforcement of strength, fie looked up to 
heaven and sighed. When the woman was 
healed He felt that virtue, that is, strength, 
had gone from Him. He approached the 
grave of Lazarus groaning within himself as 
a man in stress. He looked up and prayed 
before offering the prayer which He uttered 
for the sake of them " that stood by." He 
led the blind man away from the crowd, as if 
seeking to be as " undisturbed as possible." 
He put all but the three friends and the pa- 
rents out of the room when He restored 
to life the daughter of Jairus. He took Pe- 
ter's wife's mother by the hand and " lifted 
her up." 

Thus He bore men's diseases. He sighed, 
He prayed, He lifted them in his arms, He 
put his hands upon them, He drew them to 
his bosom, He groaned, He felt his strength 



204 THE WORLD TO COME. 

go from Him, to heal their bodies. If He 
had done less He would not have made man- 
ifest the long-suffering God ; and his saving 
men's bodies, his bearing their infirmities 
and healing their diseases, would have been 
no illustration of the agony with which He 
wrestled in Gethsemane for the salvation of 
their souls. 

" Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever/' 

" He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father," saith He who is the Saviour of the 
body and the Saviour of the soul. 

3. Again, in many instances we are told, 
that Jesus employed known remedies in 
physical healing. He manipulated the pal- 
sied tongue and the stopped ears ; " put his 
fingers in the ears ; " "touched the tongue." 
He covered the blind eyes with moist clay, 
a well-known Egyptian remedy for ophthal- 
mia. He inquired minutely the symptoms 
of the demoniac boy. He bent over those 
He healed, He touched them, as careful phy- 
sicians do. 

Those who came asking his help for their 
sick besought Him to lay his hands upon 
them, as if this was known to be his usual 
method of healing. When He sent his dis- 



WHAT HAS GOB DONE TO SAVE ME? 205 

ciples forth in his name, they anointed the 
sick with oil, a common remedy, and James 
refers to that as still customary among those 
who followed their example. James v. 14 
teaches the reverse of what it is often fancied 
to mean. It bids us use the best remedies 
known, and pray while we employ them, for 
the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous 
man availeth much while he uses the right 
remedies, of which anointing with oil was 
among the commonest, and is therefore 
given as representative of all. 

In healing the demoniac of Gadara, we 
are told Christ did two things which every 
physician experienced in the treatment of 
the insane would wish to have done. He be- 
gan by asking the maniac his name. There 
was more in that than the soothing influence 
already noted. The question was calculated 
to divert the man's attention from his dis- 
tracting malady. Sometimes, with the in- 
sane, to divert is to inaugurate the cure. 
To convince the man that he is well may be 
to complete his cure. Often the last step is 
the more difficult. 

A victim of intemperance was dashing 
himself hither and thither at risk of life in 
vain attempts to elude the monstrous phan- 



206 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

torn serpent lie saw assailing him. Nurses 
and physician were baffled. Opiates had no 
effect. The man must sleep or he must 
die. A new physician was summoned. He 
entered the room with a huge bare knife, 
attacked the phantom serpent, fought it, 
drove it under the bed, while the cowering 
wretch watched every motion in an agony 
of alternating hopes and fears ; stabbed it 
again and again, slew it, dragged it across 
the floor, threw it from the door, locked the 
door again ; and the sufferer, with a great 
sigh of relief, sank into a slumber which 
saved his reason and his life. 

May not such an experience throw light 
upon the fact that Jesus allowed the devils 
to enter into the swine and drive them down 
a steep place into the sea, where they were 
choked ? Certainly not until he had seen 
that, did the demoniac sit at the feet of 
Jesus " clothed and in his right mind." 

Thus did Jesus encourage, not the breach 
but the observance of God's order. He put 
honor, by his example, upon the use of sci- 
entific remedies. At times he healed by a 
word, without approaching the sick one. 
But He seems to have dispensed with rem- 
edies only when to employ them was impos- 



WHAT HAS GOD BONE TO SAVE ME? 207 

sible, or when they would have been obvi- 
ously useless, or when there was a special 
reason for neglecting them. His example 
said to those Apostles to whom miraculous 
powers were given, " Use the best means ; 
pray God to bless their use ; and when you 
can do nothing more, pray." And that is 
what every wise and instructed Christian 
strives to do. 

4. But in all Christ's healings there was 
conspicuously revealed the authority of ab- 
solute power. In every instance the suf- 
ferer was made to feel that the secret and 
source of his cure lay in the fact which jus- 
tified the words, " I wish, it, therefore be 
thou clean." The presence of supernatural 
power was so obvious that those who would 
not concede the agency of God were forced 
to assume the ministry of Satan, and to say, 
" He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the 
prince of the devils." 

Others might pity the sufferer, might love 
him, grieve over him, use all known appli- 
ances, spend all their strength, to help him ; 
the four might bear the palsied man in their 
arms and break open roofs to make way for 
him ; the father might suffer many deaths, 
because his son cast himself now into the 
water and now into the fire ; men might bind 



208 THE WORLD TO COME. 

the demoniac with chains, and the woman 
might spend all that she had upon physi- 
cians, — in vain. Jesus alone could say with 
authority, 4; I will, be thou clean/' 

When He spoke, devils obeyed, the dead 
heard, the despairing hoped, the lost knew 
that they were found. 

" The same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever." " He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father," saith Jesus Christ, the Saviour 
of the body, the Saviour of the soul. 

If you ask me to explain the Atonement, I 
cannot, though I might perhaps, as well as 
another, darken counsel by words without 
knowledge. If von ask me how God, bv the 
sacrifice of his Son, saves men from their 
sins, I point you to Jesus Christ delivering 
men from their diseases. There we may 
find all we need to know, all I believe we 
can know, until we have grown into larger 
intellectual growth and loftier mental stature 
than in this world we shall reach. For in 
Jesus we see God revealed not as a king, a 
judge, a potentate afar off, but Immanuel, 
God with us, calling us, coming after us, lift- 
ing us, encouraging us, hoping for us when 
we cannot hope for ourselves, giving himself 
for us, healing our diseases, and bearing our 
iniquities. 






XV. 

THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ 
for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. — 
Rom. ix. 3, 

This is the most perfect illustration known 
to Hie of Paul's own assertion that the letter 
killeth, but the spirit maketh alive. Meas- 
ure the words with rule and compass, weigh 
them in mathematical scales, and they are an 
offence to God and man. How much sun- 
light have I between my two hands? Box 
in the space, to make sure you include no 
more, no less. Apply the carpenter's rule. 
You have no sunlight ; blank darkness only. 
Treat the words of the text in that same 
way. Consider them apart from the man 
who wrote them, apart from the mental ex- 
altation in which he wrote them, and you 
put an extinguisher upon a burning lamp. 

" I could wish myself accursed from Christ 
for my brethren." Could St. Paul deliber- 
ately say that? Could he deliberately oppose 



210 THE WORLD TO COME. 

his own desires to his Master's will, and pre- 
fer his kinsmen's welfare to his Saviour's 
blessing ? Certainly not. But in the text 
does he not say he could? Certainly he 
does. Bring your dictionary and your gram- 
mar. They will not weave the words for 
you into any other meaning. With lexi- 
cons and grammars only, men have tried for 
eighteen hundred years to extract from the 
expression some saintlier significance. 

But identical phrases do not always carry 
the same meanings. 

" I want to die ! " So moans Pericles of 
Tyre. He has lost his wife, his child, his 
throne. You may pity him. But pity can- 
not blind judgment. You know the wish 
is weak and wicked. It is rebellion against 
the Powers above. 

Hear the same words on other lips. The 
Austrian squadrons stand firm, each one an 
impenetrable hedge of spears. Switzerland 
is lost unless those squares are broken. " I 
want to die ! " It is the voice of Win- 
kelried, as he gathers the spears into his 
bosom, breaks the squares, and saves his 
country. Is it right to want to die ? No ! 
Did not a hero say it ? Yes ! Was he not, 
then, weak and wicked? Go measure tape 



THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 211 

with that yardstick. It may serve to meas- 
ure tape. It will not suffice to measure 
lightning. 

The words of the text are a window in the 
Apostle's breast. Through them appears a 
great soul struggling with emotions too fer- 
vent for control. It will be our wisdom not 
to criticise the words, but to catch such 
gleams as we may of the spirit that shines 
through them. 

This Epistle to the Romans is Paul's most 
splendid utterance. It contains his last ap- 
peal to his countrymen, his final plea with 
the Jews to become Christians. Every power 
of his heart and brain is strained. He 
begins as a lawyer addressing a jury. He 
is sternly logical until each proposition has 
been proved. In the outset he announces 
his theme to be "concerning Jesus Christ" 
our Lord. Next he proves that the Gentiles 
need a Saviour. Third, that the Jews must 
perish if they have no Redeemer. Fourth, 
that God has provided for both an all-suffi- 
cient Saviour in his Son. Thus far each 
fagot is placed with careful accuracy. Then 
the match is applied. The logic blazes. 
Flames ascend. They dart upward. They 
wrap the pile in fire. He enters realms of 



212 THE WORLD TO COME. 

feeling where literal speech is impossible. 
Metaphors are thrown off like sparks from 
wheels which revolve too fast for sight to 
follow. Expressions are poured out which 
seem incoherent and unintelligible except 
to those who share the writer's exalta- 
tion. 

He has proved that without Christ all 
men are lost, and lost hopelessly. He turns 
to show the abounding love of God, who in 
his Son has opened a way of salvation for 
all. He strives to express the magnitude of 
that salvation. Carried beyond himself, he 
breaks forth in the grandest of all his dox- 
ologies : " I am persuaded that neither death 
nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor 
powers, nor things present nor things to 
come, nor heighth nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from 
the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ 
our Lord." 

Borne far beyond the present, his pinions 
bathed in light of the Eternal love, he re- 
members the unutterable loss of those who 
will not go with him. Must he leave his 
people in their darkness? The thought 
wrings his heart. A counter-wave of horror 
rushes over him. It sweeps him from Her- 



THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 213 

mon into Gethsemane. Never perhaps be- 
fore has he approached so near the mind 
of Him who wept over his countrymen, cry- 
ing, " O Jerusalem, how often would I have 
gathered thy children, and ye would not." 

His father, his mother, — great Israel, 
with all its faults the noblest race the earth 
has seen ; to whom first the promises were 
given, first the glory was offered ; stem of 
which Christ himself had come ! — these 
Israelites alone of all the world he sees re- 
jecting the world's Saviour. The Master's 
own parable is in his brain. The great day 
is near, has come. He sees the chosen peo- 
ple, his own people, upon the left hand. He 
hears the words, " Depart from me, ye ac- 
cursed ! " That he sees, that he hears. For 
the instant he sees no more, hears no more. 
He cannot reason, he can only feel. " My 
brethren are doomed! My brethren are 
lost!" Love shrieks while reason reels: 
" Save them ! Send me away, but save 
them ! I am one, they are many." In such 
a moment come the words : " I could wish 
myself accursed from Christ for my breth- 
ren, whose are the fathers, from whom as 
concerning the flesh Christ came, who is 
over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." 



214 THE WORLD TO COME. 

After that " Amen," I think, Paul's pen 
stopped ; stopped long enough for emotion 
to vent itself in tears. The next sentence 
reveals a serener mood. 

Another thought has brought relief. We 
can read it between the lines. It is this : 
" Do I love my people more than God loves 
them ? Am I willing to do for them more 
than God will do for them ? Xo ! No ! God 
has done for them all that could be done 
in the past, will do for them all that can be 
done in the future. The word of God has 
been effectual. Many, many will be saved. 
All may be if they will." In this strain he 
continues until able to express his deliberate 
thought. " My heart's desire and prayer for 
Israel is that they might be saved." That 
is mathematics. It is the translation of the 
text into the language of lower feeling. 

Have you had no experience which throws 
light on Paul's expression ? Have you never 
felt, " Without my husband, my child, there 
can be no heaven for me " ? Have you never 
prayed, " Save him, O God ! Save him, 
though I be cast aw r ay " ? At such a moment 
you may have uttered illogical, incoherent 
words. But God understands them. Love's 
wildest cries are dear to Him. In the letter 



THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 215 

they contradict, in the spirit they fulfil, the 
commandment of Him who bade us pray 
saying, " Thy will be done," — who taught 
us it is his will that not one should be lost 
of those whom He has given us by the title- 
deeds of love. 

An inferior, self-conscious spirit could not 
have spoken as Paul spoke. Paul himself 
could speak thus only when the unutterable 
vision had fused his soul and burned away 
its dross. The nearest approach to this 
glowing utterance was made by Moses when 
he too had been closeted with God, had 
talked with God as a man talketh with his 
friend, had caught enough of the divine 
spirit to think of others more than of him- 
self. Then for an instant he forgot who 
had taught him to love and to sacrifice ; for 
that instant fancied he loved men more than 
God loved them, and exclaimed in substance, 
" If thou wilt not forgive them, blot me, I 
pray thee, out of the book which thou hast 
written." Moses had left the divine pres- 
ence but a little moment when he lost power 
to speak such words. 

Spoken deliberately, they would be blas- 
phemy. Spoken in the supreme moment 
when the heaven - kindled heart melts the 



216 THE WORLD TO COME. 

fetters of the intellect, they are doxologies. 
If we picture God in the image of a small- 
souled, jealous lover, of course we shall count 
such language blasphemous. If we remem- 
ber that God is God, it will seem prayer. 

That little boy was set by you, his parent, 
to protect his infant sister. He did so well 
the duty you assigned him that, when you 
had occasion to punish his charge, he forgot 
that you were wiser and tenderer than he. 
For an instant, while his brain's small eye 
was dazzled by the light from his heart, he 
thought he must protect her even from you ! 
He asked : " Mother, let Mary go with us, 
or let me stay with her. I cannot go with- 
out her." Did that anger you? Did it pro- 
voke you to say " If my boy loves his sister 
better than his mother, she will leave him " ? 
If so, it was not because you are like God. 
AVken John Knox cried in an agony, " Give 
me Scotland or I die ! " was he not setting 
his will against the Eternal ? Was it not his 
business to live and work willingly, though 
it should not be God's purpose to give him 
Scotland? The dictionary and grammar 
books answer " Yes ! " What God himself 
thought of John Knox's prayer you may read 
in the way He answered it. 



TEE MISSIONARY SPIRIT 217 

Paul simply felt about eternal things as all 
honorable men feel about temporal things. 
Offer your body's life for another's, plunge 
into the sea to rescue a drowning man, and 
right-minded men will call you " hero." To 
offer your soul's life, if that were possible, 
to save your brother from eternal death, — 
were that less heroic ? There are times when 
men should count the cost of their resolves. 
The Master said it. But there are times 
when only cowards can be prudent ; times 
when, if one counts the cost, he is a caitiff. 

Troy is burning, her army is scattered, 
her monarch slain. Foes fill her streets. 
The gods bid iEneas fly. On him rests the 
last hope of his people. The priests with 
the sacred image, the company of men, wo- 
men, and children in his charge, hear the 
furious cries of the approaching Greeks. 
They urge .ZEneas to instant flight. But 
within the walls of Troy ^Eneas' father 
waits. He is an old man and useless. Too 
feeble to walk, but a few days more of life 
are possible to him. Shall ^Eneas delay? 
Shall he return and risk his life in the 
attempt to bear the old Anchises on his 
shoulders, a mark for Grecian swords and 
spears ? Yes ! And the gods will veil him 



218 THE WORLD TO COME. 

in protecting cloud and lead him safely. A 
hero cannot count the cost when his father 
is in danger. Even pagans knew that. But 
Christians are not less self-sacrificing than 
pagans, but more. Paul could not count the 
cost when his brethren were in danger. His 
was the spirit which would plunge into the 
eternal sea to save an infant sinking there, 
as promptly as lesser heroes would plunge 
into the Atlantic. 

" I will hold this gate against the Sara- 
cens until our ranks can form ! " "It will 
be death, for you are unarmed." " I can 
die ! " " But you are unabsolved. Die thus 
and you will be damned forever." " I know 
it, but King Louis will be saved; go bid 
him arm while I hold the gate." Less than 
that is less than Christian. 

By his own will Christ was delivered for 
our offences. If he had weighed his sacri- 
fice in any other scales than those which 
mothers use, he never would have made it. 
What are you and I and all men worth, 
compared to the infinite God, blessed for 
evermore? We have no language to ex- 
press such things. But we know there are 
millions and millions of worlds, so many 
that our earth is a grain of sand among them. 



THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 219 

If it were annihilated, none but God would 
know. Christ made all worlds. From Him 
all gather life and light. Our little sand- 
grain was peopled by mites that fought 
against their Creator, set their puny wills 
defiantly against the Highest, and planted 
for themselves eternal misery. As our dark 
and pygmy-peopled earth darts through the 
shining spaces, its angel with veiled face 
crying, " These are they who crucified the 
Lord of Glory," can the universe believe 
that the Most High will give himself for 
such an atom ? Yet God will sacrifice him- 
self for us because He is God. Were you 
the only man that ever sinned, Jesus Christ 
would die for you, because He weighs him- 
self in the same scales He has given moth- 
ers and taught mothers to employ. 

Friends, if we will thus look, not at the 
Apostle's words, but through them into the 
Apostle's soul, we shall see what made him 
different from us ; what made him an apos- 
tle ; what made him like his Saviour. We 
shall see a man who thought first of his 
Master ; second of his Master's work ; third, 
or not at all, of his own felicity. 

Paul's dialect is strange to us because we 
have lost his spirit. The language of self- 



220 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

seeking, which in earthly matters we call 
cowardly, passes current with us for celes- 
tial speech. We have thought of religion 
as a fleet of life-boats. Leap into them, cut 
away from the sinking vessel, row hard each 
for himself, — this has been long the cry. 
It was not the cry of Paul. It was not the 
cry of Moses. Their work was to tow the 
ship to harbor. 

To go to heaven alone ! That would not 
be possible for such men. To them the 
thought was terrible. Their love of God 
quintupled their love of men. Therefore 
these men were trees full of sap. The faster 
they grew heavenward, the deeper and 
broader grew the roots with which they 
grasped the earth. 

I think a man's religion, like most else 
within him, often begins in selfishness. If it 
is true religion, it cannot end in selfishness. 

The child sees in his mother at first only 
the reservoir of food and comfort. He seeks 
her bosom for his own sake. By and by he 
will love her in another way. Not what he 
can gain from her, but what he can do for 
her, then becomes his quest. 

" What must I do to be saved ? " That is 
often the sinner's first cry. With only that 



THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 221 

he may come to Christ. If he tarries with 
Jesus the cry will change into " What may 
I do to save ?" That is the cry which opens 
the gates of heaven. It is the only cry 
which can give victory over the world, or 
keep the disciple near the Master. He who 
fights the battle filled with the spirit that 
flashes through the text will end his warfare 
with the shout of trumpet-toned triumph : 
" I have fought the good fight, I have fin- 
ished the work thou gavest me to do." 



XVI. 

EASTER : TRANSFIGURATION. 

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and 
James, and John, and bringeth them np into a high 
mountain apart by themselves ; and he was transfigured 
before them. — Mark ix. 2. (R. Y.) 

The last clause of the text should, I think, 
be read, not " He was transfigured before 
them," but " He was transfigured before 
them'' For the fact which Mark would 
make prominent is not that Jesus was trans- 
figured, but that he was transfigured in the 
presence of certain witnesses. 

1. The reading I suggest is favored by the 
Greek laws of emphasis. 

2. The fact it brings to lio4it is corrob- 
orated by many intimations in the Gospels. 

3. The lessons it reveals the Master teach- 
ing are precisely those which Peter, James, 
and John appear to have supremely needed 
at that critical time when this transfigura- 
tion occurred. 

I. Transfiguration does not seem to have 
been an unusual experience with our Lord. 



EASTER: TRANSFIGURATION. 223 

We read of several occasions when He as- 
sumed an appearance which inspired un- 
usual awe in those who beheld Him. There 
were times when even the disciples, accus- 
tomed though they were to familiar inter- 
course with Jesus, " durst not ask Him any 
questions." When, with a whisp of straw, 
He drove the money-changers from the tem- 
ple, the subjection of the crowd to a single 
man, and He the man of whom they had 
lightly spoken as only " the carpenter's son," 
is best explained by supposing that they 
saw in Him a supernal majesty. When the 
multitude led by soldiers approached Geth- 
semane to apprehend Him, — remember He 
had come directly from communing with 
heavenly beings, — there was something in 
the appearance of the solitary and defence- 
less One which moved them to draw back 
and fall upon the ground in attitude of wor- 
ship. 1 I do not infer that on these occasions 

1 It is possible that the same soldiers who arrested 
Jesus at Gethsemane were on guard during- his trial before 
Pilate. If so, the touch of rancor in their mocking may 
have been caused by their vivid recollection of the hom- 
age they had been unconsciously constrained to pay Him 
the preceding night. The scarlet robe and the crown of 
thorns may be proofs of the profound awe felt by the 
Roman soldiers before Him who the next day appeared 



224 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

our Lord appeared altogether as He was seen 
upon the mount, but that his appearance was 
the same in kind, though less in degree ; that 
a change occurred which affected beholders 
with the awe expressed by Peter when he 
spoke, " not knowing what he said ; " an awe 
which made men fear to gaze or to intrude 
upon Him. 

Again, that Jesus went apart by himself 
into mountains to pray, we are told in a 
way that implies this to have been his cus- 
tom. No mortal eyes observed Him at 
those times of solitary communion with his 
Father. But on more than one occasion we 
are told that angels came and " ministered " 
to Him; " strengthened Him," "comforted 
Him." Keep these facts in mind. Remem- 
ber that they were known to the narrator ; 
remember also that on every other occasion 
when Jesus went "apart to pray," He dis- 
missed his disciples and went alone, and read 
with the right emphasis, " And after six days 
Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, 
and John, and leadeth them up into a high 

to them an ordinary man. In coarse natures the reaction 
from extreme reverence to none at all is generally vindic- 
tive. Those Frenchmen who had bowed lowest before 
the crown compelled their king to wear the red cap. 



EASTER: TRANSFIGURATION. 225 

mountain apart by themselves and was trans- 
figured before them." 

To my mind the implication of the nar- 
rative is plainly this : " Jesus was accus- 
tomed to go apart to pray, — to ascend 
mountains and spend whole nights in devo- 
tion. He was accustomed to meet heavenly 
beings there. He was accustomed to shine 
among them as the light. All this we know. 
But once He took three earthly witnesses, 
and permitted them to see those angels, who 
" strengthened Him," " comforted Him," 
" ministered unto Him." Some at least of 
these celestial visitors were seen to be pious 
men who had lived and tried to do God's 
will on earth. One of them certainly had 
died and been buried as we must be. 

The Transfiguration appears to have been 
an event in the line of our own experi- 
ence. 

We know something of the power exerted 
by the soul in changing the appearance of 
the body. If you heard that your child was 
dead, your face would blanch. If you were 
told your dying child would recover, your 
face would shine. The man who cherishes 
impure thoughts will in due time reveal them 
in his countenance. Love and purity illu- 



226 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

minate the darkest features ; malice and foul 
imaginations darken the most luminous ones. 
But the face is not only the door-plate on 
which are written the names of those that 
occupy the house : it is the window through 
which they peer. When one is suddenly re- 
lieved from mental anguish, or roused by 
rapturous thoughts, we can find no more ac- 
curate word to describe the change that oc- 
curs in his appearance than to say, " He 
seemed transfigured." 

Do not these familiar facts help us to- 
wards conceiving what transforming energy 
a soul like Christ's must have exerted upon 
a body such as his, while He was convers- 
ing with celestial beings ? 

There are well-attested instances where, 
just before death, the veil of sense between 
the two worlds has seemed to be withdrawn, 
and the dying has called the name of some 
loved one long departed. Then the pale, 
worn features shone with a light never seen 
in them before ; friends ceased to weep and 
felt, " It is good for us to be here." I do not 
mean to assert that the dying one actually 
beheld the face of the returning dead. I do 
not know. But what no one can deny is the 
power with which the soul — awakened by 



EASTER: TRANSFIGURATION. 227 

some unusual experience — transfigured the 
sick face. 

Now think of this lantern. Its sides are 
daubed with paint and grime. Through 
them the tallow dip within can send only a 
few feeble rays. When it blazes with un- 
accustomed brilliancy, a few more rays are 
transmitted. Such lanterns are we. Our 
bodies are coarsened and dulled by our dis- 
obedience to the laws of their development 
and preservation. The soul within smoul- 
ders, barely burning. Yet such souls as 
ours can shine through bodies like ours with 
the effulgence which you may have seen 
when your dying mother thought she saw 
the spirit of your father, for whom she had 
longed and waited twenty years. 

Look upon this lantern. Its sides are 
unflecked crystal. No stain dims their 
transparency. Each ray of the Drummond 
light that blazes within them is perfectly 
transmitted. Such a light in such a body 
was Jesus Christ, when his soul had been 
kindled by converse with Moses and Elias 
upon the theme which at his birth made 
heaven sing. 

II. What lessons did Christ mean to 
teach his disciples by going thus once into 
his closet without having shut to the door ? 



228 THE WORLD TO COME. 

1. He showed them the source of his 
strength. How often do we read that in 
his devotions angels " strengthened Him " ? 
In solitude, when temptation had come and 
He had retired into the wilderness to seek 
divine help against it; in Gethseruane, be- 
fore enduring the trial and the crucifixion ; 
at other times, when He had sought seclusion 
with his Father to prepare himself for what 
must come, " an angel strengthened Him." 

Such seasons of communion with Heaven 
are needed by his disciples. If we live in 
this world alone, we shall be smothered by 
its small horizon. We need experiences 
which remind us that we are citizens of 
eternity, — experiences which will make the 
events of the markets, of the grave-yard, 
and even wars and rumors of wars, seem 
insignificant except so far as they move us 
to consider the " sign of the Son of Man." 

When Elisha asked for a double portion 
of Elijah's spirit, Elijah answered, "If thou 
shalt see me when I am taken from thee it 
shall be so, as thou desirest. But if not 
it shall not be so. " If we think only of 
the body, we are on the road to saying, 
" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die." While we discern those who have 



EASTER: TRANSFIGURATION. 229 

gone before, we are moved to reason, " Let 
us watch and pray, for to-morrow we live." 

2. Christ strengthened his disciples to 
meet the trouble that was coming, by show- 
ing them what that trouble meant. 

Observe the context. In each of the 
evangelists it is the same. Peter confesses 
Christ. Then Jesus foretells his own cruci- 
fixion. Peter protests against the shame 
of it. Christ replies, " He that is ashamed 
of me and of my words, of him shall the 
Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh 
with all the holy angels." Then to the 
twelve he continues : " Some of you stand- 
ing here shall not see death until you behold 
the Son of Man in his glory." Each of 
the three evangelists who record it dates the 
Transfiguration from this conversation, as if 
the scene on the mount were in some way 
connected with it. And was it not? On the 
mount, three of those " standing here " did 
see Christ in his glory. In the first chap- 
ter of his Second Epistle, Peter explicitly 
describes this as the occasion upon which 
he had seen the Son of Man " in his glory." 
And as the three listened to the speech of 
heaven, what was the theme? The same 
which they had discussed " eight " or " six " 



230 THE WORLD TO COME. 

days before. The thing of which the three 
blind mortals had been ashamed, and one 
of them had said, " Far be it from thee ! " 
is the thing in which Heaven glories ! The 
thing of which Heaven would be ashamed 
is the thing in which these disciples would 
glory. 

Is it not plain that the three who most 
needed this lesson were Peter, who had pro- 
tested most vehemently against the cross, 
and James and John, the throne-seekers ? — 
Peter, who will take the sword to assault the 
high priest's servant, and the Sons of Zeb- 
edee, who would call down fire from heaven 
after the manner of Elijah before he learned 
to understand the power of Christ revealed 
in the still small voice. 

Did not these most need to be taught that 
the throne of God was the cross ? 

3. But why did the Master forbid the 
three to mention the heavenly interview 
until after He should arise from the dead ? 
Plainly a prominent purpose of the peculiar 
experience granted them was, to impress 
their minds with a consciousness of the sym- 
pathy of the two worlds. The scene must 
have made them feel that heaven and earth 
were adjacent mansions in their Father's 



EASTER: TRANSFIGURATION. 231 

house ; that the door was always swinging. 
As their Master retired at will into celes- 
tial companionships, so might they. But 
this was a lesson they did not need to use 
while He, their Guide, their Friend, their 
Saviour, was with them in the world. " Hear 
ye Him ! " was the sole direction they re- 
quired then. 

But the time was drawing near when they 
would need to use the lesson learned upon 
the mount. That time was not when Jesus 
hung upon the cross, not even when his body 
lay in the sepulchre, but when He had risen, 
and they would be tempted to believe that 
their continued communion with Him was 
an illusion, an " idle tale." But most of all 
would they need to realize the nearness of 
heaven and earth after the Lord had as- 
cended up out of their sight ; when they had 
seen Him vanish in the cloud, and felt the 
fancy assailing them, and wrapping itself 
around them like a fog, that He had gone 
far off beyond the stars, and left them to 
fight their way alone up to his distant 
throne. 

When that time came, and come to them 
it did, as it comes to us, the seal of silence 
was broken. Then they might " comfort one 



232 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

another with these words," and tell all men 
that Christ holds heaven and earth together ; 
that the dead join hands with the living 
around Him, for He who is always with 
them, is always with us even unto the end 
of the world. 

It is when we are in the furnace heated 
seven times hotter than it is wont to be 
heated that we most need to see beside us, 
and unharmed by the fire, the form of the 
Fourth. It is when Death has taken away 
our loved ones and we know not where he 
has laid them, that we most need to see 
Moses and Elias standing with Jesus upon 
the shining mount. 



XVII. 

FLOWER SUNDAY. 

To Children. 

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. — Matt. 
vi. 28. 

There are three virtues which Jesus was 
endeavoring to teach when He told his dis- 
ciples to consider the lilies. They are, con- 
tentment, obedience, humility. 

I. Flowers are not only beautiful, but they 
always seem contented and glad. Did you 
ever think how little they have to make them 
so ? They live on other people's leavings. 
The air gives them only what finer folks re- 
ject and call poison. When the birds and 
the beasts have taken from the atmosphere 
all they want, the flowers, like poor Lazarus, 
desire what is left, the crumbs that fall from 
the rich man's table. Then, too, if there is 
any dreadful filth from the sewers or the 
barnyard, of which men do not know how 
else to be rid, they give it to the flowers ; 



234 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

just as I have seen certain children send rag- 
ged clothes and broken toys to the Christmas 
poor-box. But the flowers are grateful, and 
though they cannot talk they blush with 
gratitude, pink or blue or yellow or white, 
according to the color of their blood. Then 
the poor flower-folk, out of these odds and 
ends which nobody else will have, make for 
themselves such splendid clothes as King 
Solomon could not get, though he had first 
choice of everything, and all the weavers and 
tailors and jewellers in the world to dress 
him. 

Once there was a toy chariot in a shop 
window. It had two horses, a driver, and 
four people inside. It went by springs, and 
when it moved the horses pranced, the 
driver cracked his whip, and the people in- 
side craned their necks to see what was the 
matter. There was a certain boy who 
thought he would be perfectly happy if he 
only had that chariot. He longed for it, 
and talked about nothing else for weeks. 
At last Christmas came, and some one gave 
him a brown-paper parcel, tied w T ith a long 
piece of pack-thread. It was the long- 
coveted chariot. The boy danced with de- 
light as he tore open the paper and tossed 



FLOWER SUNDAY. 235 

away the thread. Wise auntie picked up 
the thread from the floor and said, " May I 
have this? " 

Not many evenings afterwards the boy 
was asking for something to play with. 
" Why don't you get your chariot ? " " Oh, 
I am sick and tired of that ! " Then wise 
auntie took out of her bag the piece of pack- 
thread which he had flung away. She 
taught the owner of the chariot to play cat's- 
cradle with the twine. She taught him the 
names of the figures as they appeared, trian- 
gles and parallelograms and squares. She 
taught him how to bring out new figures. 
Many a long winter's evening seemed short 
to them both as they played with that 
string. The boy never seemed to tire of it, 
and from it he learned with delight many a 
lesson that helped him at school and on the 
play-ground, too. But the most important 
of them was, that an old string well used 
could give a hundred-fold more pleasure 
than even a gilded chariot which could only 
be looked at and coveted. 

My boy had a beautiful Chinese top which 
spun itself. He wearied of it in a few days. 
But for three seasons he has been happy 
with an old peg-top that cost five cents, but 



236 THE WORLD TO COME. 

which nobody can spin without a deal of 
practice. I never knew a girl kept happy- 
long by a silk dress made at the mantua- 
maker's, but to make a gown of calico with 
her own hands will give any girl real and 
permanent delight. 

Some of you may be studying geometry. 
It often seems tedious and stupid. That 
everlasting ABC; X Y Z; and two par- 
allel lines between two other parallel lines 
are equal, etc, " What if they are ? Who 
cares? I 'd rather fly my kite." That is 
because you keep on trying to gain more 
knowledge without getting the good out of 
the knowledge you have. Go into the yard. 
Take a shingle, a short string, a lead pencil, 
and a yardstick. Find out with these the 
distance between the back door-sill and the 
top of the next house. When you have suc- 
ceeded you will enjoy geometry ; you will 
understand that we could have no railroads, 
nor bridges, nor Atlantic cables, and could 
never learn how far it is to anywhere much 
beyond the ends of our noses, if it were not 
for those stupid triangles and parallelo- 
grams. 

Sometimes the Sunday-School lessons and 
even the sermon grow tedious, especially in 



FLOWER SUNDAY. 237 

summer. You get tired of hearing " Blessed 
are the merciful." That, too, is because you 
don't use what you know. Carry that 
knowledge about mercy somewhere and use 
it. Try to be merciful in collecting beetles 
and butterflies. Try to catch trout without 
hurting them, — you cannot do it with 
worms, but you can with a fly, — and you 
will begin to enjoy the sermon. 

So the first lesson in contentment is to get 
all the good out of the things you have, be- 
fore you wish for more things. 

II. Flowers have no wings and no feet. 
They must stay in one place. Therefore 
they never do anything which they cannot 
do at home. 

I will tell you a parable. A boy lived in 
the country. He was happy as the day was 
long. He played in the fields. He ran 
home at dinner and at supper time, and told 
his mother everything he saw and everything 
he did. But one day he overheard the beasts 
talking together. The horses stood under a 
shady tree watching him, and he thought 
they said : " Poor boy! he has only two feet : 
how tired he must get ! " But one old cir- 
cus horse, who had been turned out to die, 
said : " Oh, no ! He has four feet, but his 



238 THE WORLD TO COME. 

mother whips him if he does n' t walk on his 
hind-legs ! I know how to pity him." 

While he listened to the beasts, somehow 
the boy began to grow ashamed. So he got 
down on his hands and knees and tried to 
walk that way. He was very tired when he 
reached home. But though his mother asked 
him how his trousers got so muddy and torn, 
he only hung his head and would not tell. 

One evening he was late, from going on 
all-fours. The bats were flitting around, 
and he heard them say : " Poor boy ! he has 
to spend the best part of his time in bed. 
At night, when it is so splendid to be out, he 
has to be shut up." The next day he heard 
the crows, that steal corn and eat carrion, 
cawing : " Poor boy ! he has to eat cooked 
corn and tough meat. How his jaws must 
ache ! " Thus he began to pity himself and 
fancy he was very wretched, and that his 
mother meant to make him miserable. So 
he stayed out nights and began to eat car- 
rion. He grew peaked from never walking 
upright, and from getting scared so often in 
the darkness, and from the dreadful carrion 
which he smoked and chewed and drank. 
But when his mother asked what ailed him 
he would not tell. He went to the owl 



FLOWER SUNDAY. 239 

about it, who looked so wise. She said his 
trouble all came of too much sunlight, and 
he must put out his eyes or he would never 
be any better. So he put out his eyes. He 
came no more to church or Sunday School. 
He could not see to find his mother, even if 
he had wanted to. He was seen last Sunday 
in a dram-shop. I don't know where he is 
now, but he is very forlorn. 

The flowers told him long ago : " Never 
do anything you cannot do at home ; never 
do anything you are ashamed to do at home." 
If a boy will stick to that, he will grow up 
like a flower into a noble and beautiful man. 
When the Lord Jesus was asked to do wrong 
he said : " I and my Father are one." It 
was his way of saying, " That is not as 
they do at home ; therefore I cannot do so 
here." 

If boys use their feet to get away from 
home, they are worse off than the flowers, 
which have no feet. But if they use them 
to carry their homes wherever they go, they 
are far more blessed than the fairest flowers. 

III. The flowers have no tongues. I do 
not mean that you must not talk. God has 
given us tongues, and means us to use them. 
But let the silent beauty of the flowers teach 



240 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

us to do all the good we can and make no 
fuss about it. Never be in a hurry to tell 
people you are Christians, but act so that 
they cannot help finding it out. 

Did you ever watch beans grow? They 
come out of the ground as if they had been 
planted upside down. * Each appears carry- 
ing the seed on top of his stalk, as if they 
were afraid folks would not know they were 
beans unless they immediately told them. 
But most flowers wait patiently and humbly 
to be known by their fruits. 

Sometimes boys get laughed at because 
they think they must tell everybody that 
they are Christians. They talk about their 
piety, and never show it in any other way. 
But no boy gets laughed at for being a Chris- 
tian ; for being true and brave and kind and 
humble and pure, like the Lord Jesus. 

Consider the lilies, and see if you can read, 
with the help of this sermon, the words writ- 
ten upon their leaves : Contentment, Obedi- 
ence, Humility. 



XVIII, 

DECORATION DAY. 

For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one 
to come. — Heb. xiii. 14. 

Man is distinguished from all other deni- 
zens of earth by his inclination to build sep- 
ulchres. I recall no other human industry 
which is not rooted in some instinct shown 
by the inferior creatures. Beavers build 
cities. Bees maintain a civil polity. Ants 
plant and reap ; organize municipalities with 
hospitals for the sick ; support schools in 
which the young are taught to earn their liv- 
ing. Wolves combine in regiments, and, of- 
ficered by corporals and generals, prosecute 
campaigns which manifest both strategy and 
discipline. There are insects which weave 
garments and wear them, build houses and 
dwell in them, set traps and feed themselves 
from them. But among the lower creatures 
I can find no germ of that instinct which 
seeks to make provision for the dead; no 
trace of the impulse which moves to act as if 



242 THE WORLD TO COME. 

the dead could be influenced by its action ; 
no feeblest sign that indicates expectation of 
a city yet to come. 

But from man the indications of that in- 
stinct are never absent. All his tribes have 
left memorials which show him caring for 
the dead even more sedulously than for the 
living. His sepulchres outlast his palaces. 
The homes in which the Incas dwelt have 
left no vestiges ; their tombs endure. Most 
of the treasures of antiquity which enrich 
museums are gifts once placed by affection 
in hands that were cold, or laid upon breasts 
that were still. The richest, the grandest, 
and the loveliest structures reared by human 
hands have been given to the dead. The 
Mausoleum and the Taj Mahal, the Pyra- 
mids and The Gazneh, St. Peter's and the 
minster of Cologne, the monument to Wash- 
ington and the tomb beside the Seine, alike 
bear witness to the existence, in all ages and 
among all races, of the instinct which has led 
us to spend one day of every year in strew- 
ing flowers upon the graves of those we love. 

Animals have never, men have always, 
acted as if they believed their dead were still 
alive and sensitive to the ministries of affec- 
tion. The Egyptians placed guide-books in 



DECORATION DAY. 243 

their sepulchres ; Greece put money in the 
hands of the dead ; the earlier Semites gave 
them both food and money ; while the He- 
brews covered them with spices. 

This instinct of immortality, — call it 
dream or fancy or faith or superstition, — 
which has never been detected in the beast, 
and has never been missing in man, appears 
to me profoundly significant. Each of us 
carries in his heart the key to its interpreta- 
tion. He who brought life and immortality 
to light reveals the door into the lock of 
which that key fits with unerring accuracy. 

Perhaps this universal and distinctive hu- 
man instinct has never found a fairer form 
of expression than in our Decoration Day, 
which, though cradled in war, has become a 
strong guardian of peace. Let us therefore 
listen to some of the suggestions it enforces. 

I. By covering graves with flowers we are 
led to think of death as God intends that we 
should. 

The young rarely think of it at all. Some 
reach manhood without having learned the 
meaning of the word. The child hears of 
many that " they are dead." He may even 
have seen some die before he tastes the bit- 
terness of death. But each one's hour must 



244 THE WORLD TO COME. 

come. In due time that friend is taken 
whose going puts out the light of the one 
who is left. The earth will never again 
seem to him as it has seemed. For a little 
while others remember and respect his grief. 
Soon they begin again to act and to talk alto- 
gether as they used to do. He finds himself 
wondering, not that to him all is so changed, 
but that to others life seems still the same. 
Men go on buying and selling, smiling and 
weeping, when the things they mind so much 
seem to him so infinitely trivial. Of dying 
he has thought as of a thing utterly dread- 
ful. He has joined in the general opinion, 
and recognized in death the ultimate horror. 
When he wished to express extremity of re- 
pugnance he, too, has been wont to say : " I 
had rather die than do it ! " But the ex- 
perience which made him for the first time 
appreciate death as an inexorable fact, and 
which made him realize that he himself must 
die, has also robbed death of all terror. 

Such is the goodness of God that usually 
men are first made to feel that they must 
die, in a way that removes their fear of 
dying. Yesterday, when the happy child 
was at play, if you could have convinced 
him that he had but a few hours to live, 



DECORATION DAY. 245 

you would have plunged him into despair. 
But, thank God, yesterday you could not 
make him realize the brevity of life. A life- 
time seemed an eternity to him. But to- 
day God has told him the truth, but has told 
it as Jesus told his disciples : " I go to pre- 
pare a place for you." For to-day the child 
returns from his mother's grave and buries 
his head in her bare pillow. The whisper, 
" In a little while death will take you to her," 
is not a gloomy threat, but a radiant promise. 

So does God, in the rule, prepare men to 
die by teaching them — if they will learn 
the lesson — that they are citizens of another 
country. Every precious grave becomes a 
certificate of naturalization in the land where 
our loved ones are. Gradually, to most good 
men, the time arrives when they feel as the 
man in Ireland feels when one by one his 
kindred have gone to America and he is left 
alone among strangers. The fatherland is 
still dear, but home is across the sea. So 
God means us to ripen for heaven as life 
wears away. 

II. We shall best prepare for the life 
which now is and for that which is to come, 
if we pause at times to commune with the 
dead. 



246 THE WORLD TO COME. 

They who tell us we should think only of 
the living and the present, contradict God's 
gospel, and bid us trample under foot that 
peculiar sentiment which distinguishes men 
from brutes. If we obey them, we shall 
come to resemble brutes in more respects 
than one. 

Let our memories of the departed make 
us kinder to those who are with us. 

The bitterest drop in the cup of bereave- 
ment is the recollection of what we might 
have done but did not do ; of what we might 
have left undone but did. The unkind word, 
so little recked of once, comes back to sting 
us when we cannot make atonement. 

The deeds of kindness we have done fall 
back, like drops of rain from the heaven of 
memory, upon the heart that thirsts in the 
desert of its loneliness. For more than 
twenty years before my father's death I was 
away from home. During all those years 
I think I did not ten times fail to send a 
Sunday letter to him. When he had gone 
each of them was found in the private desk 
where he had kept his treasures. It was a 
little thing to do. But — 

"The world is wide, these things are small; 
They may be little, but they are all." 



DECORA TION DA Y. 247 

Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, 
brothers, husbands, wives, you do not yet 
know how dearly you love each other ! Only 
death can teach you that. You cannot con- 
ceive how your hearts will bleed when one 
is taken and you are left; yet how many 
days are allowed to pass without one deed 
of kindness done, one word of tenderness 
spoken ! Your circle will be broken. Not 
together, but one by one, you must go, and 
those who remain must live again the past ; 
must live it again in all but this, that you 
can never say, " I am sorry ! " 

" She was the flower of my house. She 
gave my life its beauty and its fragrance. 
But I returned her neither sunshine nor 
dew. My frowns I brought home to those 
who were saddened by them, my smiles I 
wasted among those who cared not for them. 
And now she has gone! — she has gone ! " 
That is the future many are preparing for 
themselves. 

III. This day should inspire in us grati- 
tude towards our fathers, and incite us to 
emulate their example. 

To more than half of those now living 
our civil war is only history. Young men 
know it as they know the Revolution. Many 



248 THE WORLD TO COME. 

whose parents fell in its battles cannot recall 
the faces of those parents. They are stran- 
gers to the sentiment which swayed the 
nation twenty-five years ago. Therefore to 
them those who remember should speak. 

This country of ours seemed given over to 
pleasure-seeking and money-making. More 
than three millions of its citizens were held 
in slavery. Good men deplored the fact, 
but none could find the remedy. A vast 
majority continued buying and selling, mar- 
rying and giving in marriage, as if the in- 
famy did not in the least concern them. 
Almost no one appeared to care for his 
country except as a mine out of which to 
dig treasure for himself. Americans talked 
calmly of the rupture of the Union. They 
discussed the expediency of such a course, 
and the gains or losses that probably would 
come of carving into morsels our father- 
land. Of patriotism there seemed none. 

At last cannon were fired at fort Sumter. 
Mr. Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand 
men to volunteer as soldiers. The number 
seemed to us, who heard the call, enormous. 
He asked with fear and trembling. 

Then the Spirit of the Lord moved upon 
our people. From Maine to California, men 



DECORATION DAT. 249 

forgot to care for their money or their lives. 
In every state and city and village the 
same resolve was registered : " Our country 
shall be saved.' 9 Old and young, women 
and children, quivered with the high enthu- 
siasm. Was any individual suspected of 
caring for his own interest, for his property 
or his life, more than for the salvation of 
his country, women would not speak to him ! 
He was shamed, if not into his duty, at least 
into pretence of his duty. 

For four years, young men, we breathed 
the atmosphere of heroic self-sacrifice. Dur- 
ing four years the common feeling among 
Americans was this : " My country owns 
me ! Whatever she requires of me, that I 
am to do. It is not for me to ask, ' Where 
can I earn wealth? Where can I win 
power ? Where can I enjoy life ? but 
Where can I be useful to her ? ' " 

Certainly there were hypocrites among us. 
But their hypocrisy bore witness to the prev- 
alence of virtue. For such were the senti- 
ments dominant among your fathers that 
those who did not care for their country felt 
constrained to feign what they did not feel. 
Women sent their sons and their husbands 
to die, and did not murmur. 



250 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Such was the spirit of your fathers dur- 
ing four solemn, splendid years. Because 
that spirit animated them you have still a 
country. That passion of self-sacrifice God 
gave unto your elders, which taught them 
they were here to live, not for themselves, 
but to live and if need be to die for others, 
has secured for you this superb inheritance. 

And you, young men, are called by the 
same God to act the same part in peaceful 
times. I frankly tell you, yours is the 
harder task. For you are set to stand in 
business, in politics, in society, in church, in 
family, realizing that you are not your own, 
that you are here to do, not what is profit- 
able or what is pleasant to yourselves, but 
what is right, what God and your neighbors 
need to have you do. Only so can you main- 
tain what your fathers won. You are helped 
by no tide of popular enthusiasm which will 
carry you forward in its rush. The current 
sets against you. It is always harder to live 
for the right than to die for it. But unless 
in time of peace we obey the Spirit who 
moved our fathers in time of war, we shall 
help our nation to become a rabble of quar- 
relling shop-keepers, of factory operatives 
who twine hemp for their own execution. 



DECORATION DAY. 251 

Let us ask ourselves, while we breathe the 
perfumes that fill the air, " What am I 
doing for any other than myself? Am I 
living only for my own pleasure, for my own 
profit? Can I look without shame upon 
these granite statues ! Dare I lay garlands 
upon the graves of those who fell at Gettys- 
burg and in the Wilderness ? " 

IV. To the elders among us, this day 
brings brightest witness to the guardian care 
of God. 

You remember days when the most hope- 
ful dared not hope to witness the end of 
slavery in our land. We remember how 
God forced us, by means which seemed so 
cruel and have proved so kind, to do right. 
We tried for years and years to save our- 
selves without saving our country, and could 
not. Then we tried to save our country 
without saving freedom, and we could not. 
When at last we were compelled to do right, 
we trembled and believed that generations 
must pass before the savage passions fed by 
war could be extinguished. We were sure 
a standing army would be requisite to hold 
the South to allegiance ; that the land would 
be bankrupted by its debt ; would be 
drowned in ignorance by the black man's 



252 THE WORLD TO COME. 

vote. But none of these things came to 
pass. The soldiers of the South met the 
soldiers of the North as brothers. The debt 
began to melt away, and the nations to rec- 
ognize that the baptism of fire and of blood 
had given us a right to stand among the 
foremost. 

And still we have little faith ! We are 
not worthy to carry flowers to these graves ; 
we are not worthy to tell our children of 
the great deeds we remember, nor to bear 
the name of the Christ who has died for 
us, — unless we can gather, from the revela- 
tion He unveils in Decoration Day, hope and 
courage that will enable us to look boldly 
into the eyes of political chicane, of intem- 
perance, of municipal rings, of Antichris- 
tian combinations and infidelities of every 
sort, and say to them all, " We will de- 
stroy you ! By the help of God, we are 
stronger than you ! " 

Rejoice, ye righteous ! Lift up thy voice, 
O America! lift it up with strength. Be 
not afraid. Cry unto the cities of our coun- 
try, "Behold your God!" 



XIX. 

HARVEST SUNDAY. 1 

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at even- 
tide. — Gen. xxiv. 63. 

I. These fruits remind us that our Father 
has provided for us food abundantly. 

1. They bear witness that He has not only 
given us provision for a day, as charity vis- 
itors give meals to paupers, but that He pro- 
vides for us a steady income. Year after 
year He causes the earth to give bread to 
the eater and seed to the sower. In Isaac's 
day it was not so. Then, a local drought or 
an untimely frost produced a famine and 
the people starved. In our day the prayer 
of Christ has been so far fulfilled that in 
material things at least, the whole of Chris- 
tendom is one. Unless the harvests fail the 

1 In accordance with the yearly custom at Berkeley 
Street Church, the pulpit platform was covered with 
vegetables, fruits, and flowers, which had been contrib- 
uted by individuals for the general use. These, together 
with offerings of meat and money, were to be distributed 
before Thanksgiving Day as the officers of the church 
should direct. 



254 THE WORLD TO COME. 

same year over all the earth — which they 
never do — there can be no famine among 
Christian nations. Steam has lengthened 
their arms. If Russia is hungry, she is fed 
from the lap of America. 

2. Consider further that God so gives as 
to ennoble the recipients of his charities by 
cultivating in them manly independence. 
The most difficult task we have to perform 
is to relieve the poor without degrading 
them. But God supplies our needs in ways 
that elevate us. 

Food is not brought to us in baskets and 
set down before our doors. God might feed 
us by sending aerial ships, ferried by angels 
across the sky, with freights of food for all. 
By that means He would pauperize and make 
the world a colossal Ireland. Therefore He 
does not feed us so. No good apple ripens 
but some man feels that he himself has made 
it, and finds in the food, whether he has 
raised it or bought it, the result of his own 
exertion. God is so careful not to pauper- 
ize men by his charities that, though every 
morsel is God's gift as really as it would ap- 
pear to be if his hand were visible bestowing 
it, men feel and are meant to feel that they 
themselves produce what they consume. So 



HARVEST SUNDAY. 255 

much more careful is our Maker of our char- 
acters than of his own reputation, that He 
never forces his agency on our attention. We 
must reflect before we can realize that we owe 
Him gratitude. There is need of occasions 
like this to remind the farmer who grows 
wheat that he does not grow it by himself. 
As a wise mother guides the unskilled fin- 
gers of her child to move aright over the 
paper she holds in place the pencil she has 
given him, and rejoices to hear him say, 
" Charlie can make pictures ! " so, carefully, 
God cultivates in us the germs of self-reliance. 
3. Each object here, while it represents 
ennobling human labor, reminds us also of 
the wealth of gladness God has already made 
these fruits the means of bestowing upon 
men. We are accustomed to dwell upon 
the pleasure of consuming the products of 
the earth. We consider too little the pleas- 
ure of producing them. When you see a 
genial company enjoying their Thanksgiving 
dinner, remember that the preparation of it 
has given others a larger sum of satisfaction 
than the present company receives. Con- 
sider the joy of wholesome exercise expe- 
rienced by the sower going forth to sow ; 
the thrill in some one's soul when he saw the 



256 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

blades appear, and read in the tasselled grain 
the prophecies of coming harvests ; the 
sweet sleep of the laboring man ; the beauty 
of sky and earth perpetually pressing upon 
the reapers, and filling with quiet rapture 
those who, having eyes, will see ! Innumer- 
able insects have danced in ecstasy of in- 
nocent intoxication over the blossoms whose 
beauty feeds the faith of every man who will, 
as we are told to do, consider the lilies. But 
the chief felicity of man comes from succeed- 
ing in good work. Every ripened apple, 
every gr^in of wheat, registers the success of 
some one in a good work ; is the writing of 
the Master, " Well done, good and faithful 
servant." 

4. Consider the spiritual treasures of 
strengthened character each harvest repre- 
sents ! The moral condition of a people is 
accurately gauged by the quality of their 
agriculture. A consummate Lawton black- 
berry is a more certain evidence than a 
prayer - meeting that the basilar Christian 
virtues have been at work in a community. 
An excellent Antwerp raspberry was never 
grown until self-denial, resolute faith, pa- 
tience of hope created it ; while there have 
been prayer-meetings which failed to de- 



HARVEST SUNDAY. 257 

monstrate the presence of either self-denial, 
patience, or faith. Neither cannibals nor 
Sybarites ever produced a Bartlett pear, nor 
ever will. No general statement is truer 
than this, that a thriftless agriculture evinces 
a degraded moral state. Turkey, with a soil 
of exquisite fertility, is always hungry. 
Poor, sterile Norway and Sweden export 
grain. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." God put man 
into the garden to till it and to dress it. 
If man obeys, God's earth returns a rich 
reward. If he disobeys, man always reaps 
thorns and thistles. This is true in all 
climates and under all meridians. There- 
fore the excellence of their fruitage is a just 
reason for confidence in the moral character 
of any people. It is a better test than the 
speeches of their legislators, the books of 
their authors, or even the wisdom of their 
laws. In a nation thoroughly corrupted, 
genius may blaze as it blazed in Demosthenes 
and in Cicero, but the harvests will fail as 
they failed in Greece and in Rome. The 
punishment perpetually threatened upon the 
Jews was that, if they forsook God, blight 
and mildew would devour their fields. 



258 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Among all peoples the same retribution has 
ultimately followed persistent disobedience 
of God. 

The first words legible upon these har- 
vest fruits are therefore : " Thank God, who 
feeds us. Thank Him that in feeding He 
does not pauperize us. Thank Him that He 
mingles joy with the procuring as richly as 
with the consuming of his gifts; Thank 
Him, above all, for the evidence brought by 
these full harvests recurring every year that, 
beneath the surface - wickedness of our na- 
tional life, there is a deep and prevalent 
endeavor to "fear God and keep his com- 
mandments." 

If it is seemly to thank God for the corn 
and the oil, we ought far more to thank Him 
for the better gifts of morality and faith. 
Yet religious people shrink from acknowl- 
edging God's goodness in keeping them good. 
They are afraid of appearing self-righteous. 
Far as our country is from what it ought to 
be, and from what by God's help we hope 
to make it, a higher standard of living pre- 
vails in the United States than in any other 
country on the globe. Our prayers and the 
prayers of our fathers have been answered. 
When the seeds of one year have produced 



HARVEST SUNDAY. 259 

a hundred fold, the farmer is encouraged to 
sow more bountifully the next season. So 
should it be in spiritual husbandry. There 
has been almost no effort made in America 
for the sake of Christ and his kingdom which 
has not been obviously blessed. We have 
sown few seeds that have not borne sixty 
fold. 

II. These fruits teach us to feel our need 
of God in ways that impel us to hope and to 
pray. 

By watching the processes of nature, men 
have inferred, in a way that seems to me il- 
logical, that there is no God. Thinkers 
whose sincerity I do not question affirm that 
they can see no need of a God. The laws 
of nature are invariable, we are told. They 
are never broken ; they cannot be changed ; 
their working furnishes no evidence of a 
personal Will, reveals no need of one. 

But these flowers and fruits seem to me 
written over with testimonies to the need 
and the presence of a controlling Will, — a 
Will altogether independent and outside of 
what we call the " laws of nature." 

Look at this cranberry. It is a child of 
humble parentage. I have often seen it 
growing under the laws of nature with no 



260 THE WORLD TO COME. 

help from a personal will. So growing, it 
bears bitter little berries no bigger than 
duck-shot, and so few of them that an acre 
may produce perhaps two pecks. So you 
may find them to-day in New Brunswick 
wilderness or South African savanna. 

But a personal will, named Man, has so 
employed the laws of nature on Cape Cod as 
to make these poor little bushes bear many 
barrels, four hundred dollars' worth to an 
acre, I am told, of such fruit as this. 

Here is a luscious apple. It is a child of 
the crab. Not such a crab as we see in 
gardens, but a bitter midge of a thing, all 
skin and core and pucker. It will grow 
wild almost anywhere between the Cape of 
Good Hope and Spitzbergen. For all the 
laws of nature, it continued a wizened, 
worthless thing, until a controlling will took 
it in hand and made it a Rhode Island Pip- 
pin, a Montreal Fameuse, an Ohio Belle 
Flower. When the care of man is with- 
drawn, it begins to relapse into the crab 
state again, like an unchurched Christian 
falling from grace. 

Look, if you will, at this golden emblem 
of good-nature, this symbol of contentment 
in a well-completed destiny, this harbinger 



HARVEST SUNDAY. 261 

of Thanksgiving, this pumpkin. What is 
it and whence did it come ? Who is its 
father? Who is its mother? And who 
are its kindred ? Is it not the offspring of a 
wretched gourd that climbed up trees in the 
edge of jungles, and hung its little lumpy 
fruit in a bewildered way among the branches, 
as if it did not know why it was made, and 
hoped some one would see it and tell it what 
to do? 

And at last some one did see, — the Egyp- 
tians, I am told. They took it and taught it 
what to do, and, obeying the education given 
by the human will, it became in due time a 
cucumber, a watermelon, a luscious citron, 
and, not least if last, the golden ornament 
of New England cornfields. Finally, by fur- 
ther interference of an independent personal 
will, it may become a pumpkin-pie. 

Yet men who have carefully observed and 
told us how the human will, by using the 
laws of nature intelligently, can convert a 
wretched gourd into a watermelon, while 
they have seen no instance in which the laws 
of nature unaided by the human will have 
wrought so great a change, conclude that 
natural laws, uncontrolled and undirected by 
a personal Will, have transformed the harem 



262 THE WORLD TO COME. 

of Sardanapalus into the Christian family, 
the quarrelling murderers of Anglia into the 
English Parliament, the feasting of can- 
nibals into the New England Thanksgiving. 
That is, while all our studies demonstrate 
the immense importance of the presence of a 
personal Will in changing a Shetland pony 
into a cart-horse, no personal Will can have 
had place in transforming an ape into 
Shakespeare. 

The studies which have been most popular 
for many years emphasize the efficacy of 
man's interference, not in breaking but in 
applying the laws of nature. By using them 
man can transform and has transformed 
black coal into dazzling light, and dock mud 
into strawberries. 

Suppose the voice of prayer should be 
lifted by the inanimate creation. The coals 
cannot see him, but they have a tradition 
which speaks of man and calls him " helper," 
i. e. "holy." The plants cannot see him, 
but in their hearts the same old story reigns. 
Moved by the tradition, both coals and mud 
and plants begin to pray. The black carbon 
cries, " O man, if there be any man, make 
me a shining light ! " The mud cries, " O 
man, if there be any man, convert me into 



HARVEST SUNDAY. 263 

strawberries ! " The gourd cries, u O man, 
if there be any man, make me a water- 
melon ! " 

These supplications might well seem silly 
to the unbelievers of their race, but this is 
accurately the figure I have read you from 
the Apostle Paul in the eighth chapter of 
Romans. 

The whole creation, he affirms, groans and 
travails in pain together. The earnest ex- 
pectation of all other created things waiteth 
for the revealing, the instructive teaching, 
of the sons of God, that is, of man redeemed 
and enlightened by God. The whole crea- 
tion waiteth for man, by the sovereignty of 
his redeemed and purified will, to conduct it 
into its designed development. Creation, 
that is, all but man, has been made subject 
to vanity, i. e. confusion, aimlessness, not by 
its own choice, but by reason of God, who 
thus subjected it in hope that man would re- 
deem it into order ; and creation must re- 
main undeveloped until man, by his God- 
enlightened will, leads it into liberty of 
glorious development. The crab remains a 
crab until man makes it an apple ; the gourd 
remains a gourd until man makes it a melon. 
Neither knows for what it was meant, nor 



264: THE WORLD TO COME. 

into what it can be made, until it feels and 
yields to human influence. 

In like manner also the Spirit helpeth our 
infirmities, for we know not what we should 
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit maketh 
intercession within us and for us according 
to the mind of God. The Spirit knows what 
we need, knows what He intended us to be- 
come, and that He alone can make us. 

Every soul is a garden of God. We are 
his planting. To pray to Him, to trust in 
Him, to hope in Him, to rejoice in Him, is 
our only wisdom, our only peace. 

Therefore the sight of these fruits moves 
me to pray, for in praying I am only asking 
One unimaginably better and abler than my- 
self to do for me as I can do for my inferiors 
and dependents. I do not ask God to break 
his laws. When I ask a carpenter to smooth 
a board I ask him not to break his plane, but 
to use it. Natural laws are God's tools. 
When I pray I only ask Him to use them 
as I cannot. 1 I look upon this rose. I re- 
member the scentless, ragged, single blossom 
which man's care has developed into the tea 

1 In accuracy of speech. God's laws are simply God's 
ways of working-. In a man we should call them habits. 
They are invariable because alwavs the best. 



HARVEST SUNDAY. 265 

which cheers, the canielia which adorns, and 
I ask God to do for me and all his human 
flowers more and better than men have done 
for roses as He is greater and better than 
men. 

To think of God under his name of "Hus- 
bandman" fills me with large hopes. I 
know how a genuine love for flowers makes 
a man delight in his garden. He watches 
with eagerness for the tender blade to ap- 
pear, struggling out of darkness. He shields 
it with carefulest care from the perils that 
threaten its young life. His affection grows 
with his care. "With sweet and honest satis- 
faction he observes the forming buds. He 
strives to make each plant finer than any 
that have been before ; and when one bursts 
into glory of crimson, or purple, or gold, he 
calls in his friends and neighbors, saying, 
" Rejoice with me ! " 

" Ye are God's husbandry." 

Let us remember that God thinks of us as 
of a vineyard in a very fruitful field. Eye 
hath not seen, we do not know, what we shall 
be. But his eyes will not slumber, his care 
will not fail. We may refuse his control. 
If we reject his gracious help, we must re- 
main wild grapes. But be sure of this : if 



266 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

we will yield to Him, obey his command- 
ments when we know them, receive his Spirit 
as it is given, we shall some time appear at 
his right hand, transformed by the renewing 
of our minds till the change from what we 
are to what we shall be will immeasurably 
exceed the change from the sooty coal into 
the electric light. 



XX. 

CHRISTMAS. 

The mistletoe, which our New England 
fathers flung contemptuously away, con- 
tained a lesson they would have done more 
wisely to have heeded. 

As the story runs, Balder, the god of peace, 
was so beautiful that all who saw him loved 
him. When he lay in his cradle, his mother 
spoke a charm which restrained all created 
things from harming him. Eventually it 
became a pastime of the Scandinavian dei- 
ties to gather around their favorite and hurl 
missiles at him to provoke his smiles, which 
were more lustrous than sunbeams. Oak 
could not bruise him, granite could not wound 
him, iron could not pierce him. Obedient 
to Friga's charm, they fell as thistledown 
upon his body. But the mother forgot to 
charm the mistletoe. It grew concealed 
from sight, and seemed too insignificant for 
notice. When Loke grew envious, he 
plucked a spray of mistletoe, sharpened it to 



268 TEE WORLD TO COME. 

an arrow's point, and persuaded Hoder, who 
was blind, to cast it at Balder. The missile 
flew with fatal aim and heaven was draped 
in mourning. 

In 1644 the Long Parliament decreed that 
Christmas, which had long been the merriest 
day of all the year, should be observed as a 
fast. But the Pilgrims had already written 
in the journal of the Mayflower : " Dec. 25, 
1620 : This day we went on shore, some 
to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, 
and some to carry, so no man rested on that 
day." Thus they repeated Lady Friga's er- 
ror. They consecrated all departments of 
life except its recreations. Those sturdy 
heroes fancied play too trivial for their no- 
tice. They had no time for sports. They 
forgot that it is never the consciousness of 
immortality that makes men feel hurried. 
Only the consciousness of mortality can do 
that, for he that believeth shall not make 
haste. I think that many a Christian par- 
ent has loved his children, toiled for them, 
instructed them, prayed with them, given 
the best hours of his life to them, and seen 
them sloughed at last in dissipation, solely 
because he never played with them. Play 
is the divinely ordained business of child- 



CHRISTMAS. 269 

hood. It is generally in the " child gar- 
den " that the human spirit learns to eat or 
to refuse forbidden fruits. Christmas bears 
witness that " the ministers of salvation " 
began their work by thronging the air with 
radiance and song. 

The Church in New England has treated 
amusements as Congress has treated the In- 
dians, and with somewhat similar results. 
The Indians once were friendly. Our legis- 
lators banished them outside the limits of 
Christian influence, confined them to the so- 
ciety of buffaloes, bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, 
and Indian agents ; have, in consequence, 
been forced to spend more than seven hun- 
dred million dollars to protect the scalps of 
fifty million white men from the tomahawks 
of three hundred thousand red ones, and 
now complain that Indians cannot be civil- 
ized. With equal wisdom the Church thrust 
amusements far beyond her pale, resigned 
the management of recreations to her en- 
emies, and grieves, with a surprise which 
would be ludicrous if it were not sad, to see 
her children scalped when they enter a bowl- 
ing alley, touch a billiard-cue, take an oar 
to pull in a regatta, or touch the hand of a 
maiden to lead her in the dance. 



270 THE WORLD TO COME. 

When the Church refused to use her silver 
nets, Satan stole and made them snares. 
She reaped the experience of many mothers 
who wash and dress their children, set them 
on chairs where their feet cannot touch the 
floor, and bid them keep still and be good. 

" But the saucy little boy 
Who had no toy 

Did not know what to do ; 
So he rumpled his frock, 
And tore his sock, 

And tried to eat his shoe.'' 

Christmas originated in the instinctive 
protest of the Christian consciousness against 
asceticism. It came of a half-conscious en- 
deavor to stamp the divine seal upon glad- 
ness. 

In the fourth century the relation of the 
Church to the world had come to resemble 
that which exists to-day. Christianity had 
become the dominant religion. But the 
splendid sports of the pagans drew Chris- 
tian youths into the ring, the theatre, and 
the temple. To win them thence, the fa- 
thers instituted a Christian festival more al- 
luring than those heathen ones which had 
proved so seductive. The time selected for 
its celebration proves the bravery of its 
originators. 



CHRISTMAS. 271 

The winter solstice, when the days begin 
to lengthen, as if the eyes of Time dilated 
while they watched their returning Lord, 
has always been the part of the year most 
honored by all systems of nature-worship. 
At this season the heathen world celebrated 
its most brilliant rites and its wildest orgies : 
the Swedes kindling bonfires on their hill- 
tops, and crowning columns with evergreen 
for Lady Friga's sake ; the Romans were 
rushing through their streets in the revels 
of the Saturnalia ; Grecian maidens were 
waving torches on Helicon to Dionysus ; 
Egyptian youths were bringing branches of 
palm to the temples of Horus ; Persians 
were singing the birth of Mithras ; and 
even Hindoos were shouting their loudest 
cries to Vishnu. Each of these festivals 
had come to be defiled by practices it would 
be unseemly to describe, when, in the midst 
of this whirl and confusion, where drunk- 
ards raved, night-birds screamed, and ser- 
pents coiled, the bold fathers planted the 
cross, called down the dove, set the cradle of 
Christ, and declared to those various forms 
of sun-worship, which numbered among their 
disciples nine twelfths of the Roman Em- 
pire, "The babe is the Light of the World." 



272 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Gradually the pagan festivals disappeared, 
supplanted by Christmas. The victor came 
forth triumphant, adorned with the spoils 
taken from those she had conquered and su- 
perseded. Those spoils she still wears, for 
most of our Christmas customs are only 
pagan practices picked from the mire and 
made clean. Bishop Liberius would have 
exulted could he have foreseen what has 
since come to pass, when, in the year 342, 
he preached at Rome the first Christmas 
sermon. 

Christmas is not only the children's day : 
it is a memorial of the childhood of Chris- 
tendom. 

Men love to perpetuate the memories of 
their childhood. We do not banish Robin- 
son Crusoe from our hearts when we have 
ceased to believe the fiction fact. The re- 
ligion of one age has often become the 
poetry of the next. During the Middle 
Ages Europe was in its imaginative child- 
hood. Beliefs which to us are fancies were 
then religious creeds. Many of them still 
linger, half believed, among the peasants of 
the old world, and give an atmosphere of 
peculiar sanctity to Christmas Eve. 

In parts of Germany the belief still flut- 



CHRISTMAS. 273 

ters in many a heart that on the Holy Night 
all nature bloomed with the pristine loveli- 
ness of Eden. On its return the heavens 
still drop healing dews, and the aspen-tree 
distils a precious balsam. At midnight the 
maidens of Thuringen enter the gardens 
robed in white, shake the fruit-trees, and 
sing : — 

i l Sleep not, sleep not little trees ! 
The good lady draws nigh ! 
The sun's daughter is coming, 
She will give you leaves, 
She will give you flowers, 
She will give you fruits ; 
But eye shall not see 
What she hangeth on thee, 
Till summer returns 
And the July sun burns." 

On this Holy Night alone of all the year 
the quivering aspen-tree has rest. For eigh- 
teen centuries her leaves have shivered with 
the guilty consciousness that she furnished 
wood for the cross of Christ. On Christmas 
Eve she rests, remembering that she also 
furnished wood for the Redeemer's cradle. 
A leafless bough placed in water on St. An- 
drew's night will blossom Christmas Eve, 
and roses of Jericho will adorn it all the 
year. At twelve o'clock the pains of the 
lost are relaxed, Judas sleeps upon his bed 



274 THE WORLD TO COME. 

of fire. For an hour Herod ceases to clank 
his chains. On this night Pontius Pilate's 
ghost, which has wandered all the year on 
the summit of Mt. Pilatus vainly striving 
to cleanse its hands in the water of " Dead 
Man's Lake," but only generating storms 
and tempests by the endeavor, rests until the 
dawn. The Wandering Jew hears no longer 
the goading voice " Onward, ever onward! " 
He sinks upon the ground, his black hair 
blanches, and he slumbers peacefully as a 
little child. The daughter of Herodias, 
doomed to spin an eternal dance in circles 
round the Arctic pole, finds rest on Christ- 
mas Eve. Mountains open their sides. The 
subterranean gnomes cast forth gems and 
gold, which are washed with the sand down 
river channels for the use of men. Water 
drawn this night will change to wine or pre- 
serve its sweetness through the year. At 
twelve o'clock animals are endued with pow- 
ers of speech and prophecy. The planets 
stand still while the beasts of the forests 
kneel in prayer for men. The sound of 
church bells will be heard wherever a church 
has stood, though no vestige of its ruins re- 
main. Bread baked in the open air to-night 
will cure diseases. Lie in a manner and 



CHRISTMAS. 275 

you will see your future. Peel an apple 
without breaking the skin, swing the strip 
three times around your head, drop it be- 
hind you, and it will form upon the floor 
the initial of your sweetheart's name. As 
the apple was in Paradise the source of sor- 
row, to-night it becomes the harbinger of 

joy- 
Indeed, the apple was always sacred to 
Venus, and was used by the augurs in di- 
vining. Who of us has never taken an ap- 
ple, named and counted the seeds to forecast 
the future ? One, I love ; two, I love ; three, 
I love, I say ; four, I love with all my heart ; 
and, five, I cast away ; six, he loves ; seven, 
she loves ; eight, both love ; nine, he comes ; 
and ten, he tarries ; eleven, he courts ; and, 
twelve, — suspense is ended. 

Fosbrooke tells us how Roman youths 
made their declarations. They went by 
night and hung a garland upon the door, 
behind which the dear one slept. This asked 
the important question. Then they returned 
to their bachelor abodes, filliped apple seeds 
against the ceiling, and from the way in 
which they fell upon the floor inferred the 
chances of a favorable reply. 

When our children ask for the wish-bones 



276 THE WORLD TO COME. 

at dinner, dry them, pull them with each 
other, and believe that he who gets the long- 
est limb will have his wish, they are imi- 
tating Cornelia and Julius Caesar, for this 
same thing the Roman augurs taught chil- 
dren to do at the Saturnalia two thousand 
years ago. 

But shadows also lie on the blessed night. 
Amber is the congealed tears which mer- 
maids weep into the sea on Christmas Eve, 
because they have no share in the trophies 
of the time. 

" For this is the day when the fairy kind 

Sit weeping alone for their hopeless lot, 
When the wood-maiden sighs to the sighing wind, 

And the mermaiden weeps in her crystal grot. 
For this is the day when a deed was done, 

In which they have neither part nor share ; 
For the children of clay was salvation won, 

But not for the forms of earth or air." 

Malignant spirits are on the watch, and 
would riot over the earth but for this. The 
cock crows all night on Christmas Eve, and 
the wicked imps, who cannot be wise or they 
would not be wicked, think it continually 
about to dawn, and are afraid to appear lest 
the snn may overtake them. 

We twine wreaths of holly with the scar- 
let berries and call them Christmas wreaths. 



CHRISTMAS. 211 

The Danes taught us to do that. They said 
Christ's crown was made of holly. When 
its briers touched his brow they softened 
into pointed leaves, and the berries which 
had been white before were dyed scarlet by 
his blood. 

The Thanksgiving mince pie appears to 
be inherited from Christmas. Originally it 
contained no meat but mutton, perhaps from 
deference to the shepherds of Bethlehem. 
Into it was put all fruits and spices brought 
from the East, some say in memory of the 
Wise Men whose gifts came from the Orient. 
But the truer theory seems to be that the 
grateful housewife strove to combine, in a 
thankful offering, all the products of the 
year from near and far. In England, to 
suggest the manger, the crust was made ob- 
long in shape. 

From Germany comes the Christmas tree. 
The legend runs that when Eve plucked 
that unwholesome apple, the fruit fell from 
the tree of life, its leaves shrank into needle 
points, its rich green turned sombre. In 
short, it became the fir-tree, whose evergreen 
dress beneath the winter snow still marks it 
as the tree of life. 

On the night of Christ's birth the tree 



278 THE WORLD TO COME. 

cast off its mournful dress and bloomed 
again as of old. This legend is reenacted 
when we take the fir-tree, decorate it with 
all things bright and beautiful, and hang 
upon its boughs gifts radiant with love ; 
leaves and fruits for the healing of the na- 
tions. Only by miracle was the true nature 
of the fir-tree learned. 

Maturnus was the son of the widow of 
Nain. He was sent by St. Peter as a mis- 
sionary to the Gauls upon the Rhine. The 
Apostle gave him a staff which had been cut 
from the tree of life. When the pilgrim 
reached the Black Forest, he leaned his staff 
against a fir-tree, and went to sleep. When 
he awoke it had disappeared. It had grown 
into the trunk, and become once more a 
branch of the tree of life. While Matur- 
nus searched for his cane there came a little 
bird from Paradise, alighted on the branch, 
and sung a song which told him that the 
staff had found its parent. So he knew that 
his journey was ended and straightway be- 
gan to preach. 

Our custom of giving presents is borrowed 
from the Romans. Their usual gift was a 
small taper of white wax. Love makes light. 
But in the time of Tacitus the custom had 



CHRISTMAS. 279 

developed so much ostentation that only the 
wealthiest could afford to meet the expecta- 
tions of their friends. Fashionable people 
sometimes bankrupted themselves by mak- 
ing Saturnalia presents, hoping to receive 
back again more than they gave. The same 
danger threatens Christmas among us. 

These old traditions would not be worth 
repeating, but for the fact already men- 
tioned. Most of them were once religious 
creeds. History was shaped by them, as we 
are shaping history by our strenuous faith 
in the opposite of the Gospels. 

For an illustration, the legend of the 
Magi may serve. Its influence can be traced 
through the Middle Ages, and its power in 
moulding history shown. This is the tradi- 
tion. The three Wise Men who came from 
the East bearing gifts were kings. Twelve 
days were consumed in their journey. This 
is one of the reasons given for continuing 
Christmas festivities twelve days, and con- 
cluding them with the Twelfth Night of 
England, or Sylvester Abend of Germany. 

The names of the Wise Men were Mel- 
chior, Jaspar, Belthazar. Melchior's gift 
was a golden apple, which had been cast by 
Alexander from the tribute of the world, 



280 THE WORLD TO COME. 

and thirty pieces of silver. What became of 
the apple I do not know, but the history of 
the money has been preserved. A Chaldean 
idol of gold was melted and minted by 
Terah, and the coins, thirty in number, 
given to his son Abraham. By Abraham 
they were paid to Ephron the Hittite for 
the cave in which Sarah was buried. Thence 
the coins passed into the hands of the Ish- 
maelite merchants, who with them bought 
Joseph from his treacherous brothers. To 
Joseph they were repaid by these same 
brethren, when they went to Egypt after 
corn. With the same coins Joseph bought, 
from the sovereign of Sheba, spices to em- 
balm his father. After lying a few cen- 
turies in the imperial treasury they were 
brought by the Queen of Sheba as a present 
to Solomon. The king of Arabia plundered 
them from the Temple in the time of Ee- 
hoboam. They remained in Arabia until 
Melchior, the king of that country, brought 
them to Mary. When the Holy Family fled 
to Egypt, Herod's soldiers pursued them 
closely. They passed a field where a man 
was sowing wheat. The grain sprang up 
instantly by miracle. An hour later the sol- 
diers arrived. " Have any fugitives passed 



CHRISTMAS. 281 

this way?" they asked. "Not since that 
field was sowed ! " was the reply. As the 
grain was ready to harvest, the soldiers 
turned another way. When Mary saw the 
miracle, in surprise she dropped the money 
Melchior had given her. The peasant picked 
it up, paid it as a votive offering to the tem- 
ple at Jerusalem, where it remained until 
given by the high priest to Judas for the 
betrayal. How the coins became silver, 
though they had been cast from an idol of 
gold, I do not know. Perhaps the idol was 
only plated. It would be encouraging to 
discover such an evidence that pagans also 
tried to be thrifty in matters of religion. 

In return for their gifts, Mary gave the 
Wise Men the swaddling clothes, and the three 
were eventually baptized by St. Thomas. In 
the fourth century their remains were mirac- 
ulously discovered by the Empress Helena 
and removed to Constantinople. 

Here the legend ends and history begins. 
In the Church of St. Sophia reliques sup- 
posed to be those of the Wise Men had long 
been worshipped, when in the twelfth century 
they were removed to Milan and presented 
by the Emperor Frederick, in 1164, to Rhi- 
naldus who carried them to his bishopric of 



282 THE WORLD TO COME. 

Cologne. Hence the Magi were called the 
Three Kings of Cologne. King Louis of 
France, leaving the skulls at Cologne, trans- 
ported the bones to Paris. Those who vis- 
ited Paris to worship at their shrine received 
rings or fragments of ivory or parchment 
inscribed with the names of the three wor- 
thies, usually with some word of benediction 
added. These were worn about the person 
as amulets. They were believed to protect 
the possessor from disease, and were largely 
used as gifts between friends. From such 
a practice arose the custom, so common on 
the continent, of giving Christmas mottoes, 
the originals of Christmas cards. 

A pleasant reminder of this custom I have 
witnessed at the annual Christmas ball given 
at Kroll's Gardens, Berlin, upon Sylvester 
night. Twenty years ago Kroll's was per- 
haps the largest dancing hall in Europe. It 
was always crowded at the Sylvester ball. 
At the first stroke of twelve the music 
stopped, dancing ceased ; the silence was 
broken only by the clang of the huge bell 
striking midnight. The revellers looked up 
and stood as if spell-bound. The stranger 
lifted his eyes because the rest had done so. 
Nothing appeared until the air pulsated with 



CHRISTMAS. 283 

the last stroke of twelve. Then a mist 
appeared to gather on the lofty ceiling, as 
when one breathes upon the window pane. 
The mist condenses. It begins to flutter 
downward as flakes of snow. Slowly the 
flakes descend. They seem minutes in fall- 
ing, before they are seen to be bits of tissue 
paper. Ladies and gentleman stand below, 
motionless as statues, each braced for a 
leap. It is a sight to photograph. Gentle- 
men with orders glittering on their breasts. 
Ladies in silk and velvet, with diamonds 
flashing on arm and bosom. Each in atti- 
tude of eager expectation. Before the snow 
fall reaches the floor, the entire company 
appears bewitched. They leap upwards, 
they spring on each other's shoulders, they 
snatch from each other's hands. Each 
strives to secure the first handful. Though 
the papers fall thick and fast, few reach the 
floor. Well bred though one may be, it is 
scarcely possible for him to escape the con- 
tagion, or keep from scrambling with the 
rest. The politest people take the measles. 
The papers are Christmas greetings. He 
who gathers most is counted victor. The 
mottoes are preserved through the year, not 
as amulets, but as tokens of good-will and 
memorials of Christmas. 



284 THE WORLD TO COME. 

But we have not reached the end of this 
legend of the Wise Men. The three skulls 
have long been preserved at Cologne, their 
names written in rubies. They were kept 
in a mimic temple of gold and gems in the 
most sacred shrine of the ancient edifice. 
Over them, and because they were there, 
arose the grandest monument of Gothic art, 
the mighty minster of Cologne. 

In the year 1212, before the present edi- 
fice was built, a peasant boy named Nicholas 
appeared in Cologne. He was twelve years 
old. He claimed to be a messenger from 
Jesus Christ to the children of Germany. 
He said he had been sent to lead them to 
the Holy Land. 

The elders had failed to capture the sep- 
ulchre of Christ by swords and spears. 
Therefore the little ones must win it by their 
songs. Jesus would divide the sea for them 
to pass, and teach them songs which should 
make the walls of Jerusalem fall down and 
convert the Saracens to his service. 

At the spot consecrated by the reliques of 
the first pilgrims from the East the children 
gathered. In his childish treble, with the 
eloquence of complete conviction, the boy 
proclaimed the glory of the enterprise. He 



CHRISTMAS. 285 

pointed to the golden casket which enclosed 
the reliques of the Wise Men. His message 
fell upon willing ears. It entered hearts full 
of the crusader's ardor, which had passed 
from men and entered the children. These 
gathered from near and from far. They 
could not be restrained. Of those kept by 
force at home, some sickened and died. The 
superstition of the age saw in their deaths 
the judgment of God upon those who had 
attempted to oppose the will of the Holy 
Spirit. Even the Pope feared to speak 
against the enterprise. The children of the 
poor went unattended. The rich sent ser- 
vants with their little ones. Hundreds of 
monks joined the weird caravan. In July 
or August of the year forty thousand chil- 
dren, many of them under twelve, marched 
from Cologne. Some were clad in crusa- 
der's costume, white, with a cross of scarlet 
cloth upon the shoulder. Each wore a palm- 
er's hat and bore a palmer's staff. They 
moved in two columns, their small hands 
grasping tiny pennons and mimic crosiers. 
Twenty thousand of them ascended the 
Rhine. They had no organization, no com- 
missariat. Their only plan was to follow 
the leader, whom they believed to be inspired. 



286 THE WORLD TO COME. 

It seems to have been expected that they 
would be miraculously guarded. It almost 
seems as if they were. 

At nightfall they lay down upon the grass 
and slept until the dawn. They ate what 
charity bestowed as they passed through 
village and hamlet. Those who had provi- 
sions in their small crusading sacks shared 
with those who had none. They advanced 
practising the hymns they were to sing 
before Jerusalem. 

Some of these hymns which Nicholas had 
taught them are still preserved. One, if it 
was indeed composed by a boy of twelve, 
and not, as has been suspected, by his 
father, is little less than a miracle. Ren- 
dered from the Latin it runs thus : — 

i ' Fairest Lord Jesus, 

Ruler of all T&tions, 
Thou of Mary and of God the son! 

Thee will I cherish, 

Thee will I honor, 
Thee my soul's glory, joy, and crown. 

" Fair are the meadows, 

Fairer still the woodlands, 
Robed in the beauty of the spring ! 

Jesus is fairer, 

Jesus is purer, 
Who makes our saddened hearts to sing." 



CHRISTMAS. 287 

They have reached the Alps. Hardship and 
famine have been at work. They are only 
ten thousand now. Still they struggle for- 
ward, over the terrible pass that nearly 
thwarted Hannibal and Napoleon. 

Their tender feet press the flints and tread 
the ice of the lonely glacier, but the moon 
shines softly and the stars are bright while 
the little ones kneel at nightfall in the snow 
and their sobs pass into melody : — 

"Fair is the sunshine, 

Fairer still the moonlight, 
And the sparkling starry host ! 

Jesus shines brighter, 

Jesus shines fairer, 
Than all the angels heaven can boast." 

After seven hundred miles of journeying 
these little wanderers appear approaching 
Genoa. The amazed Italians ask the mean- 
ing of their coming. 

" May we rest one night in your city ? 
We are going to deliver Palestine and 
baptize the Paynim. " The city asked the 
children to remain a few days for rest, and 
promised then to send them safely home. 
The offer was gently rejected. 

" We would only rest one night in this 
city. To-morrow Jesus will make a path 
through the waters for his holy children, and 
we will journey on." 



288 THE WORLD TO COME, 

Bitter was their disappointment when the 
next day's sun revealed the ocean still im- 
passible. Of these enthusiasts it is not 
known that one ever reached his home again. 
History has passed lightly over this marvel- 
lous episode as a mystery it is equally unable 
to explain or to deny. 

The one truth preached by these children 
the world cannot afford to forget. It is 
that the harp is stronger than the sword. 
The crusades of the nineteenth century are 
between the rich and the poor. To bridge 
the space between them with genial fellow- 
ship has been a main work of Christmas. 

Once a year, at the festival of Mithras, it 
is said that the Parthian monarch descended 
from his throne, stood upon the ground, 
clasped hand with the common people, and 
cried, " I am one of you." At the Saturna- 
lia masters and slaves exchanged apparel, 
the masters served while the slaves sat at 
table. Liberty of speech was allowed. At 
the banquet some one was by vote elected 
temporary king. Beans, white and black, 
were used as ballots. White " yes," black 
" no." Generally a wit of obscure birth like 
Plautus was selected, and all his commands 
must be obeyed. 



CHRISTMAS. 289 

Hence the English Twelfth Night with its 
" King of the bean," or " Lord of Misrule." 
Here are germs of the old time English 
Christmas. Let the housemaid rise early on 
Christmas morning, for two village swains 
are waiting at the door. If the great sau- 
sage is not boiling over the fire at sunrise, 
they may take the damsel by her elbows be- 
tween them, and run with her around the 
market-place till she is out of breath and 
ashamed of her laziness. 

The centre of the Christmas dinner was 
the boar's-head, sacred animal, — because by 
rooting with his tusks in the ground he 
taught mankind to plough. It has been ob- 
served that this is not the only habit men 
appear to have derived from the same in- 
structor. When the Puritans abolished the 
boar's-head by law, even the Christmas pie 
and plum-pudding were for a time counted 
heretical, which made Sir Roger de Coverly 
remark that he had hope of the Roundheads 
when he observed them at the king's pud- 
ding. 

A beautiful dish was the peacock. Some- 
times it was carefully skinned so as not to 
mar the plumage, the flesh cooked and re- 
placed within the skin and brought upon the 



290 THE WORLD TO COME. 

table with all the feathers flying. Some- 
times it was baked in a pie. the head and 
tail in full splendor appearing above the 
crust, to give origin to the Shakespearian 
oath : " By the cock and pie." 

In the third year of his reign King Henry 
VIII. celebrated Christmas at Greenwich. 
A castle was erected in the grand hall. 
Cannon frowned across the mimic moat. 
Knights armed cap-a-pie paced the battle- 
ments. On the pennon floating from the 
keep was written, " Castle Dangerous. "Be- 
fore it appeared the king with five compan- 
ions. They were clad in suits half velvet 
covered with gold spangles, half cloth of 
gold. They wore caps of russet satin em- 
broidered with gold and brilliants. They 
charged upon the castle. Its pennon sank. 
The drawbridge was lowered. Forth came 
the defenders. They were the six most 
beautiful ladies of the court, clad in russet 
satin embroidered with leaves of gold and 
powdered with seed pearls. They danced a 
morris with the knights. Then the pennon 
rose again, and the fair dames led the knights 
captive within the castle. 

Enormous sums were expended in such 
pageants by King Henry. But the revels 






CHRISTMAS. 291 

were not confined to royalty. All classes 
participated. The bulwarks of rank w r ere 
largely removed at Christmas time. 

In the kitchen every member of the house- 
hold from duke to scullion must aid in carry- 
ing the Yule log, while each one tried to drop 
his end upon his neighbor's toes, as Congress- 
men endeavor to carry through Congress 
bills which, though remunerative, are like to 
prove unpopular. Even the learned bar- 
risters must share in the revels. Dugdale 
tells us the matter was not left to their op- 
tion. All the members of the bar were 
obliged to dance after the Christmas dinner, 
before the judges, chancellors, and bench- 
ers, and with them. " And this was thought 
very needful, as making these gentlemen 
more fit for their books at other times." In 
the reign of James I., all the barristers of 
Lincoln's Inn were disbarred by decimation, 
because they refused to dance at Candlemas 
according to the ancient order of the society. 
It would amaze us if Harvard should refuse 
to graduate students who could not or would 
not dance the hornpipe. Yet out of such 
soil grew Bacon, Burleigh, and Blackstone. 

France seems least of all the nations in 
Europe to have enjoyed the spirit of Christ- 



292 THE WORLD TO COME. 

mas. Frenchmen could not even make a 
Christmas pudding. Louis le Grand once 
attempted to regale the English ambassador 
upon that celebrated viand. He sent to 
London for the recipe, instructed the royal 
cook with his royal lips, told how to mingle 
the flour and the condiments, how many 
raisins and how much citron to use. But he 
forgot to tell the cook to boil the pudding in 
a bag, and the combined efforts of the great- 
est monarch, and the most famous chef in 
Europe resulted in a mess wilich had to be 
served like soup in a tureen, while the guests 
were compelled to harpoon the floating plums 
with forks or dredge them up with ladles. 

The cynical, unlovely customs which have 
hung upon the robes of Christmas come from 
France. Such is April Fool's day, which 
was first devised in memory of the bootless 
errand on which Pilate sent Christ to Herod, 
and was afterwards transferred to the time 
of Easter. 

At Christmastide the priests entered the 
pulpits and crowed as chanticleers, calling 
themselves St. Peter's cocks. They dis- 
guised, perhaps it would be more accurate to 
say revealed, themselves in asses' skins, and 
brayed in honor of Balaam, who first pre- 



CHRISTMAS. 293 

dieted the rising of the Star of Bethlehem. 
They celebrated the time, as that navigator 
who sighted certain bluffs in Southeastern 
Africa on Christmas Day, and therefore 
called them " Natal," or " birth town," with- 
out suspecting that they were the gateway 
to a land of diamonds. French merrymak- 
ings are more redolent of gas-lights than of 
May-blossoms. Frenchmen danced, but often 
in a fiendish style, — a style commemorated 
in that legend made familiar by the " Elegy 
of the Cork Leg." 

A party of young people assembled near 
a church on the south of the Rhine to dance 
on Christmas Eve. A priest, disturbed at 
his devotions, asked them to desist. They 
refused. Three times he. repeated the re- 
quest. Three times they scornfully rejected 
it. He warned them to beware. They 
ridiculed his warning. On they danced. 
At last they grew weary. But as they would 
not stop when they could, now they could 
not when they would. The dawn broke, 
still they danced on. The town came to see. 
On they danced. The monk discerned his 
own sister in the cotillon. He seized her 
by the arm and tried to draw her from such 
fell companionship. Off came the arm in 



294 THE WORLD TO COME. 

his hands, and the rest of her danced on. 
The ground was worn away to their ankles, 
then to their arm - pits. Their clothes fell 
off. Their ribs grew visible, their bones 
clattered like castanets ; still they danced on 
twelve months, night and day, until at last 
Bishop Hubert took pity upon them, granted 
absolution, and they stopped. 

Perhaps in no institution has the spirit of 
Christmas brotherhood gleamed more gayly 
than in the German Christmas fair. Let 
me show you one at Berlin. Six days be- 
fore Christmas, a visible change passes over 
city and suburb. A magic change, as when 
the wand touched Cinderella, and the child 
of the ash-heap became the queen of the ball- 
room. The streets begin to be lined with fir- 
trees. The shop-windows grow kaleidoscopic. 
The central attraction is the Christmas fair. 
It is held in the royal square. Here a mimic 
city springs up in a night. The buildings 
are booths of fir boughs, and tents decked 
with evergreen. No monojDolies are allowed. 
It is the people's fair. Peasants from the 
country are there, peddlers from the slums, 
princely merchants from the Linden. The 
booths are arranged in avenues that form a 
mimic town. 



CHRISTMAS. 295 

Each booth is adorned with prodigality of 
ornament, till it looks almost like a Christ- 
mas tree. At night wax tapers of countless 
colors gleam on every side. They are fas- 
tened in most surprising places, — hung upon 
twigs, thrust into pipe bowls, stuck into hat 
bands. All manner of articles are exposed 
for sale. Here is a pair of white china 
wolves lineally descended from the nurse 
of Romulus and Remus. There is the iden- 
tical mouse which gnawed the lion free, 
whose biography is it not written in the 
chronicles of the book of -ZEsop? Blown 
glass fairies, gilt gingerbread ogres, plaster 
of Paris angels, wooden peacocks with bead 
eyes and chicken - feather tails, diminutive 
steamboats on wheels, disconsolate lovers 
done in sweet-cake with pathetic ditties in 
white sugar dropping from their lips ; impla- 
cable furies on impossible dragons with red- 
foil eyes and tin claw toes ; the bright faces 
of the damsels who offer these monsters for 
sale presenting sweet contrast to the mon- 
sters themselves. 

The avenues are filled with a motley 
throng. Rich and poor are together here. 
The bright uniforms of the soldiers, the sil- 
ver helmets of the police, harlequins fantas- 



296 THE WORLD TO COME. 

tically clad, boys with colored lanterns and 
variegated transparencies. Some have rat- 
tles which they spring at you, and shriek 
with laughter as they see you start. One 
thinks himself at Rome in the carnival. 

Woe to the spectator whose dignity re- 
bukes the fun. At other times the Prussians 
are remarkable for the deference they show 
to rank and wealth. But to-night they effer- 
vesce. Here comes an elegant youth. From 
silken hat to mirror boot his attire is immac- 
ulate. Through his eye-glass he surveys the 
wild scene with the solemnity of a grasshop- 
per on a light-house observing the ocean and 
seeming to wonder why it foams. A bright- 
eyed peasant girl casts tender glances toward 
him. He looks toward her booth. He pities 
her weakness. He will remind her that the 
wren must not too much admire the eagle. 
But he will not be cruel, for she blushes ; 
poor child ! He will buy a trifle. Alas for 
the young foreigner! He has yet to learn 
that buying trifles of young damsels at fairs 
is no trifle ! What shall he buy ? M Oh sir, 
this toilet box ! See the cupid on the lid ! 
Only five groschen, good sir, and a cupid on 
the lid ! " 

He pays the five groschen. " Thank you, 
kind sir, thank you I " 



CHRISTMAS. 297 

He tries to lift the lid, but it will not 
open. 

" Let me show you, kind sir ! Touch the 
little spring, kind sir." 

He presses the spring : up flies the lid, 
forth darts a clawing demon with a terrific 
shriek, dashing a cloud of powder into his 
face. Peals of luscious laughter ripple 
around him, as blinking, sneezing, sputter- 
ing, his broadcloth ruined, he shouts for the 
police. There they stand, laughing also, 
for it is Christmas time, and this is the 
Christmas fair. 

But the genius of kindness and Christ- 
mas polity is nowhere more completely pre- 
sented than in the American conception of 
Santa Claus. I once knew a little boy who 
had seen that hero. It was after midnight 
when the child stole down the broad stair- 
way, crossed the deserted hall, and entered 
the large dining-room. The fire was out. 
The moonlight cast fantastic shadows upon 
the floor, as he crouched beside the huge 
Franklin stove, shivering with cold and awe. 
A rustling in the chimney, a fall of soot 
uDon the hearth. " He is coining ! He is 



coming 



! " 

" As still as death with stifled breath," 



298 THE WORLD TO COME. 

the watching eyes dilate with fear and ex- 
pectation. A moment of quivering excite- 
ment, and the fur cap, the twinkling eyes 
appear ! But what is this ? A tail ! Bit- 
ter was the disappointment when there ap- 
peared the tame raccoon, which had been 
shut out by accident, and had taken this 
mode of entrance, not because it was Christ- 
mas but because it was cold. But the dis- 
appointment was tempered and made toler- 
able by the strong suspicion which the boy 
still retains, though thirty years have passed, 
that it was St. Nicholas, and that he sud- 
denly changed into a familiar form to baffle 
and rebuke a wicked curiosity. Did not 
Proteus assume the appearance of a seal 
under similar conditions? 

But why can Santa Claus enter only by 
the chimney ? The road he travels was pre- 
pared by the Norse Goddess Hertha. At 
the festival held in her honor the house was 
decked with evergreens. An altar of flat 
stones, called Hertha's stones, contracted 
eventually into " hearthstone," was placed at 
one extremity of the hall in which the fam- 
ily assembled. Fir boughs were piled upon 
it, and the torch applied. As the crackling 
boughs shrivelled, the Goddess was supposed 



CHRISTMAS. 299 

to descend through the smoke, and so to 
guide the flames that those skilled in Saga 
lore could predict the destinies of each per- 
son present from the movements of the fire 
flakes. 

An irreverent spirit has suggested that 
these were not the only occasions on which 
the destinies of families have been known 
to be influenced by sparks. 

When the older festival was absorbed in 
Christmas, Santa Claus must needs come by 
the way Hertha had opened for him. 

St. Nicholas — the name has been con- 
tracted into Santa Claus by dropping the 
first instead of the last syllable, as Alexan- 
der is shortened into Sandy — must not be 
confounded, as he often is in America, with 
Kris-Kringle, the little Christ - child, or 
Christ -Kindlein, who goes about Holland 
on errands of loving-kindness. The verita- 
ble St. Nicholas was born at Patara early 
in the fourth century. His piety was un- 
paralleled. His nurse could never wash the 
soles of his feet, because he would continu- 
ally stand erect in the attitude of prayer, 
even while he was being bathed. His sanc- 
tity was so great that when an infant at the 
breast he fasted twice a week, and could not 



300 THE WORLD TO COME. 

be induced to touch pap or gruel on Fri- 
days. His virtues multiplied with his years, 
until he was known throughout Christendom 
as " The Good.*' 

An Italian nobleman of wrecked fortunes 
had three daughters. Too poor to portion 
them with dowries, the wicked parent ap- 
prenticed them to degrading employments. 
St. Nicholas heard of this, came at night, 
and threw three bags filled with gold into 
the house, to be used as marriage portions 
for the girls, or returned to the giver. Thus 
he put the father in pawn for his children. 
This gave him rank as the first Christian 
pawnbroker. The three purses of gold, 
rounded into three gilded balls, which still 
hang above the doors of these benevolent in- 
stitutions, and serve as stars to mariners, for 
the help of victims persecuted by the police, 
point to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of 
pawnbrokers. 

The news of the saint's kindness was 
spread afar. The nuns of a certain convent 
begged their abbess to persuade St. Nicho- 
las to visit them. He consented to do so, 
and sent word that every nun who gave him 
one of her stockings should receive it again 
filled with sweetmeats. Hence came his habit 
of filling stockings. 






I 



CHRISTMAS. 301 

At another time a nobleman sent his two 
sons to Athens to be educated. But first he 
dispatched them to St. Nicholas to receive 
his blessing and advice. It was night when 
they reached the holy man's abode, and with 
boyish bashfulness they withdrew to the vil- 
lage inn to wait until the morning. There 
the landlord murdered them, stole their gold, 
and to conceal his crime chopped their bod- 
ies into small pieces, which he concealed 
in two barrels of salted meat. The deed 
was disclosed to St. Nicholas in a vision. 
He charged the innkeeper with the crime, 
brought him to confession and repentance, 
forgave him, resuscitated the defunct youths, 
sent them on their way rejoicing, and has 
been ever since the patron saint of school- 
boys. 

The legend of St. Nicholas is the pro- 
test of healthy human instinct against the 
ecclesiastical asceticism of the Middle Ages. 
That the wholesome reaction did not suc- 
ceed without opposition may be, perhaps, in- 
ferred from the fact that the same concep- 
tion, which we love to cherish by the name 
of Santa Claus, inspired in some minds those 
fears which are still suggested by that other 
name, " The Old Nic." But the wiser course 



302 THE WORLD TO COME. 

prevailed. While the monks taught that 
piety and cheerfulness were foes, that the 
doors of heaven swung on leaden hinges, 
and that hilarity and gayety were crimes ; in 
violent half -conscious protest against that 
accepted creed, the saintliest saint in all the 
calendar, the only one who never committed 
a sin, and whose saintship dates from his 
cradle, was sent forth in fullest sympathy 
with the universal human heart to scatter 
smiles and rain down gladness, and teach 
once more that only they who become as lit- 
tle children can enter the kingdom of God. 

Thus Christmas bids us make our churches 
radiant, and our homes happy with the glad- 
ness children can enjoy. It is well worth 
our while to do so. Chambers quotes from 
Dr. Jamieson a letter of Hamilton's, written 
when the disciples of John Knox were striv- 
ing to drive Christmas out of Scotland. The 
ministers, it is said, made their wives spin 
flax at the front doors, and the more zealous 
sent their servants into the fields to plough 
on Christmas Day, to emphasize their disap- 
proval of the popular festivities. " Yes," 
wrote Hamilton, " the ministers of Scotland 
cause their wifis and servants to spin in 
open sight on Yule Day ; and their auditors 



CHRISTMAS. 303 

constrain their tenants to yoke their pleuchs 
on Yule Day in contempt of Christ's na- 
tivite ! Whilk our Lord has not left unpun- 
ishit ! For their oxen ran wod [mad] and 
brak their nekis, and lamit some o' the 
pleueh-men." 

In our day there is small danger that such 
blunders will be repeated. He best uses 
Christmas who makes his home so happy 
that his children cannot be enticed from it. 
A happy childhood is a saving talisman 
through life. The angels that hover over 
his mother's chair follow a man always. 

A youth sat in his solitary room thinking 
of the circle around his father's hearth. He 
was in a foreign land, it was the first Christ- 
mas he had spent away from home, and a 
huge city lay around him. In the great 
capital he thought no one but he seemed 
sad. The boy or the man who has grown 
too old to long for home is to be pitied, for 
home is the little mirror lake in this world, 
the only one that, by its still reflection of 
what bends over us, discloses the reality of 
heaven. The youth was homesick. There 
came a knock upon the door. A stranger 
entered. At least he was almost a stranger, 
for the two had met but once. The stranger 



304 THE WORLD TO COME. 

brought an invitation to his house. Not 
without protest, for the young are often shy, 
the invitation was accepted. They did not 
go directly to the stranger's house. First, 
they made a little tour together. The stran- 
ger's pockets were plethoric, and he carried 
a large basket on his arm. It, too, was full. 
They went to many a door that had no bell, 
up many a stairway that was dark and dank. 
Wherever they appeared children clustered 
around them with gleeful welcomes. Each 
child received some token that Christ was 
in the world. For the sick there were deli- 
cacies, for the old comforts. When the 
youth praised the stranger's benevolence, 
the sole reply was this : " Oh, no ! I am 
only trying to pay back! " The words were 
not quite plain, but both were made happy 
by sight of so many faces brightened by 
their coming, and sound of so many bene- 
dictions. 

When pockets and basket were empty the 
two reached the stranger's house. There was 
waiting a little maiden just twelve months 
old to a day. A mother held her. The 
maiden crowed and cooed, pursed up her 
red lips to be kissed, and reached out her 
arms to be taken. Then by the light in 



CHRISTMAS. 305 

her father's eyes the meaning grew plain of 
the words he had spoken : " Trying to pay 
back ! Trying to pay back." 

The memory of that Christmas has been 
to the youth who experienced it a perpetual 
benediction. He forgot that he was not one 
of the family. There were trifles upon the 
Christmas tree with his name written upon 
them. There was a chair for him at the 
Christmas table. When he feared for a mo- 
ment he might jar the peace of the house- 
hold by intrusion of foreign feet, the anxiety 
was banished by the echo of the words, 
" Trying to pay back ! " 

Perhaps the hostess divined the thought 
of her guest, for when they parted she said, 
with a grace of courtesy acquired by years 
of familiarity with courts and companion- 
ship with a queen, who has since become an 
empress, " When Noah opened the window 
and drew in the lonely and wing-weary dove 
it brought a leaf which made his family far 
more blessed than it found them." 

In that Christmas Day the young man 
thought he saw a dim but lustrous reflec- 
tion of that World to Come where a Happy 
New Year shall comfort those that mourn ; 
where the Church of Christ shall appear 



306 THE WORLD TO COME. 

without spot or wrinkle or any such thing ; 
where praise and prayer shall be sponta- 
neous as the carolling of larks ; where all 
burdens shall be loosed and God's people 
shall find their joy in serving Him whose 
name is in their foreheads ; where faith 
shall discern distinctly things not disclosed 
to sight; where Gideon's men shall rest 
from their enemies, Saul shall not seek the 
-witches' cave, and Samson shall have learned 
the truth that can make him free ; where 
the hearts of the children shall have been 
turned to their fathers, and the hearts of the 
fathers to their children, that the earth may 
not be smitten with a curse ; where he that 
is least shall be greater than the greatest we 
have known ; where none shall ask, " What 
must w T e do to be saved ? " but all shall be 
singing, " Thou wast slain and hast redeemed 
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred 
and tongue and nation ; " where all shall 
be filled with the Spirit of Him who left 
the bosom of his Father to make God mani- 
fest to men ; where the Unseen shall be rec- 
ognized as the real ; where the lesson of the 
lilies shall be heeded, the prophecies of 
Decoration Day fulfilled, and the gratitude 
which good men feel at Harvest Home find 



CHRISTMAS. 307 

utterance in the psalm ascending with the 
voice of many waters, " Allelujah ! for the 
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let us 
rejoice and be glad and give honor to Him, 
for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and 
his wife hath made herself ready ! " 



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Rev. Leighton Parks. 

His Star in the East. A Study in the Early Aryan Re- 
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Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules. Translated from 
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Provincial Letters. A new Translation, with Histori- 
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Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
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Biblical Researches in Palestine. 3 vols. 8yo, with 

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History of the Egyptian Religion. Translated from 
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